


The Armour Around a Heart

by thatisbaffling



Category: Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Domestic Fluff, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Slow Build, Witch Curses, these are all mark's characters and not mark himself!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 28,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24054385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatisbaffling/pseuds/thatisbaffling
Summary: In a world where babies floated down in bubbles after nine months, you were only arrested if you were over 25 and dark magic was commonplace, Mark found himself as a failing actor at 17. He decided to take matters into his own hands and ended up angering a demon who set a death curse on his soul. His life would be short and painful as his blood slowly turned into black mist.After getting fired, he moved in with his best friend, Abe, as they both attempted to make his remaining life the most enjoyable it had ever been. This was hard as Mark was notoriously difficult to please, but he knew where he needed to start: with a list.
Relationships: Abe | The Detective/Mark Fischbach, Damien | The Mayor (Who Killed Markiplier?) & Mark Fischbach, Illinois/Yancy, abe/will, illinois/mark
Kudos: 6





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> wasdfxgchvhm its finally up! at the request of a majority of our amazing followers on ig, the story is here :") this was originally just for will, so i apologise if i've forgotten to alter anything i needed to (just tell me in the comments lol if sth doesnt make sense!!!!)
> 
> this is also based on/heavily inspired by a book i used to love when i was about 12 so!!! 
> 
> thank u so much :"")

Mark often found himself longing, musing over unfulfilled desires.. he wished he had a boyfriend. He wished he lived in the closet on a coat hanger or something and whenever he wanted he would take him out. His hair would be dark and slick and he would look at him the way they do in the movies, as if he were the universe and all the stars. He wouldn't speak, but his soft, red lips would be parted slightly as he breathed heavily unbuckling his jeans; he'd wear white boxers and he'd be so gorgeous Mark would almost faint. He would take his clothes off too and whisper:  
"I love you. I really fucking love you Mark. You're beautiful." 

Mark sat up slowly, stretching, and switched on the bedside light. The pale yellow glow didn't seem to make a dent in the fading sun flooding through the parted curtains. There was a pen, resting by the lamp, but no paper, so on the wall behind him, he wrote:  
'I want to feel the weight of a boy on top of me.'   
Then he lay back down and turned to gaze out the window. It had become an odd colour - red and charcoal all at once, like the day was bleeding out.

He could smell food - sausages probably. Abe didn't really know how to cook much else. Maybe this time he'd take Mark's advice and throw in a couple of vegetables too. He always did this on Saturdays. He'd leave a plate outside Mark's door on days like this and Mark would wait until he heard him walk back into the living room and then go and collect the food. They wouldn't speak. He'd then leave it outside again and, when Abe was ready, he'd come, collect it and wash them both up. Mark would watch the light disappear out the window. Abe would drink beer and smoke until it was late enough for him to go to sleep. 

He'd come up to try and talk to him earlier, maybe even just to show his face. He had walked over to the window and gently opened the curtains.   
"Look at that," he muttered as the light flooded the room; there was afternoon sun, the tops of trees, the sky. He’d stood, silhouetted against the window, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the curtain. Then he’d sighed and walked over to sit on the edge of Mark's bed. "If you won't talk about it, how can I help you?" He’d said, finally. Mark had held his breath. He’d figured out that if he did that for long enough, white lights danced in front of his eyes. Abe had reached over and stroked his hair. "Breathe, Mark." He’d whispered.   
Instead, he’d yanked the duvet from underneath them both and pulled it over his head. Abe went away after that.

Now, he was in the kitchen frying sausages. He could hear the fat spitting and the slosh of gravy in the pan. He wasn't sure if he should be able to hear it all from his room, but nothing seemed to surprise him anymore. He heard the sizzling stop and nothing for a moment, before Abe walked to the balcony and lit a cigarette. Mark rolled himself out of bed and walked over to his window, slowly opening it and leaning out to see him. Abe noticed and rolled his eyes, a small smile playing at his lips.   
"You want anything special?" He said, lips holding a cigarette.   
"Yeah." Mark answered, pointedly, then let silence hang between them for uncountable seconds. Abe frowned.  
"What?"  
"A baby elephant." Mark smirked.  
He huffed out a chuckle, shaking his head. "I'm going to miss you." He didn't look at him.


	2. Two

Illinois didn't knock, he just walked in and sat himself down on the bed. He looked at him strangely, as if he hadn't expected to see Mark there.   
"What are you doing?" His voice was low and gentle.   
"What?" Mark rolled his eyes.  
"Don't you come out of here anymore?"  
"Did Abe call you?" There was a silence.  
"Are you in pain?"   
"No."  
Illinois gave him a suspicious look, then stood up and took off his coat. He was wearing a white shirt, tucked into his jeans for once. Mark raised an eyebrow.  
"Are you going out?" He asked. "Have you got a date?"   
But he just shrugged and walked over to the window. He circled a finger on the glass, then finally said:  
"Maybe you should try and believe in God."  
"Should I?"  
"Yeah," he rolled his shoulders back, still staring out at the street below. "Maybe we all should. The whole human race."   
"I don't think so," Mark watched him intently. "I think he might be dead."  
He turned around to face him. His face was tanned, worn and battered, like summer. His eyes drifted across the room. "What have you written on the wall?'   
Mark didn't really know why he let Illinois read it - maybe he wanted something to happen. It was in thick, black ink. With Illinois looking, all the words writhed like spiders. He read it over and over. He hated how sorry for him he could be.  
He spoke very softly. "It's not exactly Disneyland, is it?"  
Mark scoffed. "Did I say it was?"  
"I thought that was the idea," he breathed out a laugh. Mark did too. "I think Abe's expecting you to ask for an actual house or car or something.. not a boyfriend." 

It was amazing, the sound of them both laughing. Even though it hurt, Mark adored it; laughing with Illinois was one of his favourite things. So he let himself laugh.   
Then Illinois spoke again. "Are you crying?"   
He wasn't sure. He thought he was. He sounded like a dying animal, a bird getting shot clean out of the sky. Everything just flooded in all at once - tar dripping slowly down his throat like blood filling up his lungs. Soon he wouldn't be able to breathe.   
"It's okay if you're afraid, Mark."

"It's not."  
"Whatever you feel is fine."   
Mark rolled his eyes again. "Imagine it, Illinois," his volume began to rise. "Being terrified all the time."  
"I can."  
But he couldn't. How could he? He had his whole life left. Mark hid under the duvet again, just for a moment, because he was going to miss breathing. And talking. And windows. He was going to miss the sky. And dogs. He liked dogs. Their tails wagging, their tongues sticking out.   
And where he was going, he couldn't take anything with him. 

Illinois watched him wipe his eyes with the corner of the duvet.   
"Do it with me." He said, suddenly.  
Illinois looked startled. "Do what?"  
"It's on bits of paper everywhere," he gestured around the room. "I'll write it out properly and you can make me do it."   
"Do what?" He spoke, slowly. "The thing you wrote on the wall?"  
Mark shrugged. "Other stuff too, but the boy thing first." He ran a hand through his hair. "You're always having sex, you would know, and I can't." He watched his words fall into him. They landed somewhere very deep.   
"Not all the time." He said, eventually.   
"Please, Illinois," Mark stuck out his bottom lip. "Even if I beg you not to, even if I'm awful to you, you have to make me do it. I've got a whole list of things I want to do."   
When he said, "Okay," he made it sound easy, as if Mark only asked him to visit more often.   
Mark was cautious. "You mean it?"  
He nodded. "I said so, didn't I?"  
He wondered if he knew what he was getting himself into.

Mark sat up, stretching and letting the duvet fall down to his pelvis. Illinois had opened his closet and was rummaging around for something. He had a plan. That was one of the good things about Illinois, he always had a plan. From the back of the closet, he pulled out a black shirt. It was silky and still had the label on it.   
"I'll wear this," he draped on the back of a chair. "You wear mine." He started to unbutton his pristine shirt.   
"Are you taking me out?"   
"It's Saturday night, Mark." he smirked.  
Of course it was.   
He pushed himself out of his bed in one swift movement, making his head faze in and out of reality momentarily. Illinois stood in his jeans and helped Mark put on the shirt. It smelt of him. The material was soft and clung to his skin.   
"Why do you want me to wear this?" He chuckled.  
"It's good to feel like you're someone else sometimes."  
"Someone like you?"  
He considered the statement. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe someone like me."

When Mark looked at himself in the mirror, he got to see the difference in his expression: big-eyed and dangerous. It was exciting, as if anything was possible.   
"Where do you want to go?" He asked.   
There were lots of places Mark could answer this question with: clubs, the beach, parties. He wanted a big dark room where he could barely move, with beautiful bodies grinding close together. He wanted to hear a thousand songs played incredibly loud and he wanted to dance and sing. He wanted his voice to be thunderous above the throb of the bass. He wanted to get so hot that he had to let ice melt in his mouth.   
"Let's go dancing," he replied. "Let's find some guys to have sex with."   
"Alright." Illinois smirked, taking his hand and leading him from the bedroom.

Abe came out of the living room just as they passed in the hallway. He looked surprised. "You're up," he nodded once at Illinois. "Wow."  
"He just needs a little incentive." He winked. Abe frowned.  
"Which is?"  
Mark leant on one hip and looked him in the eye. "Illinois' taking me pole dancing."   
Abe looked embarrassed. "Funny." He spat.  
"No, really." He continued, but Abe just stared at the floor. Mark felt sorry for him - he didn't know what to do. He sighed. "We're going clubbing."  
"I'll look after him." Illinois winked again, but he sounded so sweet and wholesome that Mark almost believed him. He grabbed his arm, pulling him behind him and out the front door. As they shut the door, Mark called goodbye, but Abe didn't answer. 

"Midnight's okay." He muttered, turning to glance back at the apartment complex. "He'll just worry-"  
"Let him," Illinois smirked, opening the car door and sliding himself in. "It's only one night, Mark."  
He'd never thought about it like that before.


	3. Three

"You don't drink, do you?" Illinois said. He was leaning against the sink in his kitchen and Mark was standing too close to him. He was doing it on purpose.   
"I just wanted tea." They both shrugged at this and Illinois chinked his beer bottle against Mark's teacup and tipped his head back to take a swig. Mark watched his throat swallow and noticed a small, pale scar under his chin, a thin ribbon from some long ago adventure. Mark leant over and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Illinois smirked.  
"You okay?"  
"Yeah," Mark glanced down into the mug. "You?"  
"Yeah."  
He smiled at him and Mark always knew Illinois had a nice smile. He was glad - it would be so much harder if he were ugly. Music was playing softly in the distance somewhere. He suddenly felt responsible as Illinois took another long drink of his beer, a thick growl in his throat, and realised that he needed to get on with his plan. This was about him after all. 

He downed the rest of his tea, rested the cup on the draining board and moved even closer to Illinois. The tips of their socks touched.   
"Kiss me." He said, which somehow began to sound ridiculous the longer Illinois didn't do anything, but he didn't seem to notice. He put down his beer and leant towards him. 

They kissed quite gently, lips just brushing, only a hint of breath from one to the other. Mark always knew he was excellent at kissing and he'd always just been hoping that Illinois was too. He didn't know it would feel just like that though: the soft scour of his chin on his, his hands gently searching his back, his tongue running along his lips and into his mouth. 

They kissed for minutes, pressing their bodies closer, leaning into each other. Mark's hands ran down his back, feeling the curve where his spine ended and stroking him gently there. He opened his eyes to see if Illinois was enjoying it, but was drawn instead to the window behind him, to the trees surrounded by night out there. Little black twigs tapped at the glass like fingers. He snapped his eyes shut and grinded himself closer to him. He made a small moaning noise at the back of his throat.  
"Let's go upstairs." He whispered.

His hand was hot as he laced their fingers together and led him through the lounge to the stairs. Mark followed him up the stairs; he didn't go to Illinois' often, he was always away or out or sleeping at someone else's. It felt out of place.   
"Here." He walked them both through the door to a dark room with a large bed and books and maps stacked against the walls. His room was nice. If Mark tried hard enough he could imagine spending the rest of his life with Illinois, it would be nice. Nice. It would taste like a breath mint.   
Illinois saw him staring at him and smirked. "You ready?" And Mark nodded.

When it finished, Mark lay under him, feeling mostly silent. They stayed like that for a moment, then he rolled off and looked at him through the dark.   
"You okay?"   
Mark nodded and flashed him a smile because he was okay. Everything was okay but that wasn't the task. That wasn't on the list. Illinois' hair wasn't slicked back or black, his skin wasn't pale like fresh snow or soft pink petals, and his eyes weren't bright or caring. He cared, but only for Mark. He didn't want to speak though, so he moved closer, burying himself deeper and hiding himself in his arms. He swept his hand in circles on his back, whispering 'shush' into his ear. 

Mark leant back eventually, placing the back of his hand on Illinois' palm. Their fingers interlocked.   
"I should get back to Abe." 

He heard Illinois breathe out from his nose, in reluctant response. "We can't go home yet, I'm wrecked." So Mark just nodded and pressed his nose in the nape of his neck. This wasn't the love or care he was imagining - perhaps he added too much water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's one of will and my actor hcs that he can't process alcohol like the real mark so thats the origin of the first few lines lol


	4. Four

Mark sat on the windowsill, staring at the street. There weren't many people, but it wouldn't matter as they were so far away anyway. So far below him. He could feel the afternoon breeze on his face. He'd spoken to Abe earlier. 

"I just don't understand why I feel so strange," he had lamented.   
"Strange how?"   
Mark had shrugged, tugging at his lip with his teeth. "Lonely, and my stomach hurts." Abe had nodded. He always knew, somehow.

He felt his phone in his hand, light and thin as if it were going slip out and down onto the concrete below at any moment. He counted to fifty in his head, then dialled 911.   
"Emergency services. Which service do you require?"   
He didn't say anything.  
"Is there an emergency?"  
"No." He said.  
"Can you confirm there isn't an emergency? Can you confirm your address?"  
Mark told the voice where Illinois lived. He confirmed there was no emergency. He wondered if Illinois would be sent some kind of bill. He hoped so.   
He sat for a moment, tapping his finger on the screen, then dialled a number he didn't know and waited for the other person to pick up.  
After a second, they did.  
"Hello?" His voice was higher than Mark's, but had a more grounded tone. It was sweet and refreshing like a breath of fresh air.   
Mark listened to it echo in his ears for an amount of time he didn't count, then suddenly felt bad for wasting his time and said: "Everything's a pile of shit."  
There was a silence and Mark smirked mirthlessly to himself, any care he had gained for the man on the other end of the line was gone now. Then he spoke again.  
"I think you have the wrong number, but if you need to talk to someone I'm here." Mark didn't say anything. "Are you still there?" The voice sounded genuine, soft, gentle.   
"No." Mark said and hung up.

He saved the number without thinking about it too much.


	5. Five

Mark listened for Abe's short morning routine: he'd be in the kitchen, needing to shave and rubbing his eyes as if surprised to find himself alone. He would make himself a coffee, then put all the dishes away from the day before and turn the washing machine on. That would take around 10 minutes. After, he would come into Mark's room and they would either talk or not, then he would leave. He would work for hours and Mark would be bored.

But he didn't want that. Not that morning. So he slipped out of bed and into his rich, dark red dressing gown and tiptoed down the hallway. Still, he didn't seem to surprise Abe when he stood at the kitchen doorway; he just took a long sip of his coffee. Mark could feel it going down his throat as he watched him swallow.   
"Lie on the couch." He commanded. Abe raised an eyebrow.  
"What?"   
"Lie on the couch with me." He stated and took Abe's hand, just as he pushed the mug onto the counter, leading him to the sofa. He knocked him down and lay himself on him. 

"I haven't seen Illinois in a while," Mark mused after god-knew-how-long of just resting his head on Abe's chest.  
He felt Abe nod. "Do you want to?"  
"I don't know." He whispered and shut his eyes.

When Mark opened his eyes again the lighting was dim and he could hear the roll of thunder. Abe had gone, probably back to work. Mark stretched and ran a hand through his hair - he didn't know how long it had been but his breath felt rancid on his tongue. He walked over to the window and looked out, stretching his back and legs against the air behind him. There was the man again, running across the road. He ran every day at around 4pm.. Mark frowned to himself. 4pm? God.

He thought he'd watch the man run a bit more, cycling shorts tight on his thighs underneath the football shorts and pale blue t-shirt pushing flat against his lean stomach. Mark leant his chin on his hand. Then he tripped - the man fell over - and Mark couldn't help but laugh, clasping his hands over his mouth. It was spectacular. Then a couple passed him as he sat on the ground, forehead pressed against his knee. Tense. And Mark felt anger.

He wasn't sure when he ran out of the apartment complex without a key, shoes or anything other than his underwear and dressing gown, but he found himself running across the road to the man on the floor. As Mark got closer, he saw his hair was dark, black, slicked back and his skin looked like a lily petal in Spring. He glanced up, his lips looked naturally rouged. 

He had tears in his eyes, but none seemed to have actually fallen. Mark was suddenly kneeling down opposite him, feeling his heavy breath on his face.   
The man smiled, grateful. "You alright?" He nodded.  
"Yeah, sorry," he winced and moved his bloodied hand from his bloody knee. "Just lost my footing." He gave a weak, but somehow reassuring grin. His teeth were bright and perfect. Mark felt like he could melt. The sweat on his skin was now cold and glistening in the setting sun.   
"Why are you sorry?" Mark smirked, taking his wrist and looking at the blood on his palm. He tried not to wince.  
The man giggled slightly and peered again at the gash on his knee. "Well I don't mean to bother you-"  
"It's okay," he tapped his tongue on the roof of his mouth for a second. "We should get you cleaned up."  
He smiled. "You sure?"  
"I offered." He moved himself back, feeling the artificial mint of his breath made him realise his own stench. "I'm Mark, by the way."  
"Mark," he grinned. "I'm Damien- thank you." And the rest of the world went silent.


	6. Six

He thought it was late morning, but it wasn't. He thought the apartment was quiet because Abe had got up and gone out. It was only six o'clock though, and he was stuck with the muffled light of dawn.

He took a packet of cucumber sticks from the fridge and stuck one in his mouth. Felt the cool water on his lips. He turned on the radio: Following a pile-up, several people had been trapped in their cars overnight on the freeway. They had no access to toilets and food and water had to be delivered to them by the emergency services. Gridlock. The world was filling up. A politician cheated on his wife. A body was found in a hotel. It felt like listening to a cartoon, so he turned it off and got an iced water bottle from the freezer. It made him feel drunk and very cold. He took his coat off the peg and crept about the kitchen listening for leaves and shadows and the soft sound of dust falling. This warmed him up a bit.  
It was seven minutes past six.  
Maybe something different would be out on the street: a buffalo, a spaceship, the moon. He tiptoed out the apartment and ran down the stairs to the lobby. The doors opened automatically to the outside world. 

He took out his phone and texted Illinois one word: 'DRUGS.'  
He didn't text back. It was weird - he was probably with his boyfriend, hot and happy in his bed. They both had come over a week before. Mark didn't remember his name. Illinois had a boyfriend. And he didn't. They had come over and Illinois had laid against his chest on the couch as if they had got married and he missed it. All Mark could think was how the weight of his boyfriend's arm was slowing him down. He didn't want the boyfriend to know about the list.

But without Illinois, he would just stand on the pavement and watch the clouds gather and burst. Water would run in rivulets down the kitchen window and another day would begin to collapse around him. Was that living? Was that anything?

Fast, heavy footsteps on the pavement just behind him. Mark leant in the doorframe of the apartment complex, watching Damien run, eyes focused on the sky in front of him, headphones in, sweat on his bare skin. Mark smirked, stepping out in front of him.  
"Hey again!" He had to catch them both as Damien smacked straight into him - in reality, he wasn't really sure what he was expecting, but he had him in his arms now and he didn't mind.   
Damien jumped back, clutching one hand over his chest as if he had given him a heart attack. "Jesus!" He breathed, pulling one headphone out. His breath was loud. "I wasn't expecting you." He smiled. Mark felt himself smiling back.  
"You finished?"   
Damien started to catch his breath again. "Why?"   
Mark shrugged, coyly grinding his shoes into the gravel. "Well I was wondering if you wanted to walk?"  
Damien's shoulders relaxed and he ran a hand through his already-slicked back hair. "I'm not busy." Their eyes met for a while longer than a moment. Mark felt peaceful.

"Are you always up at this time? I've never seen you before."   
Mark could lie at that moment - tell him about his neverending work and household chores that he had to do every morning and his nagging roommate, but he loved Abe and.. he watched the sunrise reflect in Damien's hazel eyes. "No," he rolled his shoulders back, eyeing a dog-walker across the road. "But this morning feels like a new time." He nodded, which made Mark feel warm. "What about you? You always run twice a day?" Damien laughed.  
"I try to-" he adjusted his headphones down his t-shirt. "I think the mornings are very refreshing." He was right - they were; Mark needed to remember this. 

Mark didn't know where they were walking, but Damien seemed to be following him so he just continued. "I've got a list." He didn't know why he said that. He wasn't planning on it.  
"Oh yeah?"  
"Yeah, of things to do before I die."  
"Like a bucket list? That's-"  
"Because I'm dying." He didn't know why he said that either - it surprised him. Damien began to speak but Mark stopped him. "I don't want sympathy, I just thought you should know." It surprised Mark again when Damien nodded and smiled and asked:  
"What's on your list?"

"Drugs, I think, are next." Drugs were tentative, but Illinois made him write it in black ink on the page, so he really had to. It would be fun - for a one time thing.   
"Drugs?"  
"Yeah, I don't mean aspirin-" he answered, in odd defense.  
"I didn't think you did." Damien chuckled and Mark found himself laughing too.   
"Yeah," he calmed himself down. "My friend's getting me E." He sounded proud.  
Damien raised an eyebrow. "Ecstasy?" He frowned slightly and Mark suddenly felt small and wrong. But Damien smiled again soon and his heart rate relaxed. That hadn't happened before. "You should take mushrooms instead."  
Mark scoffed. "They make you hallucinate, right?" He didn't want random shit suddenly running at him.   
Damien shook his head. "You'll feel dreamy, not trippy. My sister uses them in black magic." He didn't seem fazed by this, and that somehow reassured Mark. "I can get you some if you want."  
"You can?" This guy seemed so innocent, he almost didn't want him tainted by his stupid list.   
"Today, if you want-"  
"Today?"   
Damien laughed. "No time like the present."  
Mark smiled. "I'll call my friend." Illinois would kill him himself if he did it without him.


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: DRUGS

"Where do you think he gets them from?"  
Illinois yawned. "Legoland?" He smirked.  
"Why are you being such an ass about this?" Mark wasn't usually irked like this at Illinois, maybe it was his new, stupid boyfriend, but he wasn't being as charming as he normally was either.  
"Because," Illinois rolled over on Mark's bed. "He sounds like a weirdo, honestly, a creep," Mark felt his shoulders tense. "I told you I'd get them."  
Mark leant further forward on the windowsill, gazing out at the route Damien usually ran. "You haven't exactly been around." He spat.  
Illinois sighed, but Mark knew he wasn't mad, not at him. Damien hadn't been back out and he never ended up getting his number, so he had to just wait until he called the flat. Mark hated that. He hated waiting. Illinois joined him at the window. "So he hasn't run past again?" He taunted and Mark rolled his eyes.  
"He had to get them from his sister - she uses them for black magic."  
Illinois looked at him with plotting eyes. "You like him, don't you?"  
Mark scoffed. "I don't-"  
"You do," he laughed. "You know stuff about him you couldn't possibly know if you didn't care."  
Mark shook his head, trying to throw him off the scent. He'd play with it otherwise, make it bigger than it was.  
"Do you stand here every day stalking him?"  
Mark flushed a pale pink. "What? No-"  
"I bet you do - I'm going to ask him if he likes you too-" he grinned.  
"No - Illinois!"  
He backed himself to the bed, laughing.  
Mark frowned, wrinkling his nose up and pouting. "Please, Illinois, don't mess this up." His voice was soft.  
He walked slowly back across the room, shaking his head. "Mark, I thought we had a pact: never let a guy into your heart."  
Mark folded his arms. "What about you and," he hesitated. "Yancy?"  
Illinois looked surprised. "That's different-"  
"How?"  
He smiled, his cool suddenly regaining itself. Mark sneered. "That's just sex."  
"No it's not," he sat himself up on his windowsill, Illinois now leaning next to him. "When you guys came over, you could barely drag your eyes away from his face."  
"Bullshit!"  
"It's true." Mark was smug.

Illinois used to live his life as if the human race was about to become extinct, like nothing really mattered. But around Yancy, he went all soft and warm. Didn't he know this about himself? Mark noticed Illinois staring at him so seriously that he grabbed his face and kissed him because he wanted him to smile again. His lips were soft and he smelt nice.  
"Hey-"  
"You were spoiling it." He said, firmly.

"This is my friend, Illinois."  
Damien smiled. It looked different to the one he was used to which made Mark feel light. "Hey."  
Illinois nodded. "Oh I've heard so much about you," Damien giggled nervously. Illinois clocked this. "Only good things from Mark, obviously." He added in a wink. Mark smiled, secretly crushing Illinois' foot beneath his own.  
Mark laughed in a charismatic manner. "Obviously," he repeated, then turned his full attention onto Damien. "You got them, right?" He nodded.

He didn't really know what happened next, but there was something very calm about him, which seemed to be contagious. Damien didn't take any, said he wanted to look after them and, besides, he didn't really do the whole 'drug thing'. His voice became the only clear thing. They sat for a bit, talking about bullshit, but Mark couldn't really concentrate. He kept waiting for something to happen, to alter. Damien explained how you could tell the mushrooms were right by their pointed caps and spindly stems. He said they grew in clumps, but only in late summer and autumn. He said that they were legal, and you could buy them - dried- in certain shops. 

He felt cold and considered asking Illinois to get his coat from the other room, but couldn't seem to get his words out.  
"Is it supposed to make your throat hurt?"  
Damien shook his head, attention fully on Mark again.  
"It feels as if my windpipe's shrinking." Illinois started stroking his back.  
"It'll stop." Damien said, but a flicker of fear crossed his face.  
Illinois raised an eyebrow. "Did you give us too much?"  
"No," he said almost immediately. His sister had got them. He trusted his sister, Mark recalled. "It'll be alright, he just needs some air." But doubt had crept into his voice and Mark bet that he was thinking the same thing: Mark was different, that his body reacted differently, that maybe it was a mistake.  
"Come on, let's get outside." Mark stood up and Damien led him to the balcony. "Stay there, I'll get your coat."

The front of the house was in shadow. He stood on the patio, trying to breathe deeply, trying not to panic. Then Damien reappeared with his coat and he began to relax again. Damien smirked.  
"Your pupils are huge," Illinois laughed at this with Mark. "It's working." He rested the coat around Mark's shoulders and pulled it tightly around his waist. Mark liked that, he felt soft.

When Mark woke up, he was in the living room and Illinois was asleep on the sofa. Damien wasn't there. He felt open and alive and he could feel himself breathing; the air felt fresh like waves against his face. Everything seemed a little brighter and glistening, glowing like stars - but not the fake ones, the happy, clear nights' stars. He liked those ones a lot. Then he saw Damien, walking in from the balcony.  
"I've discovered something!" His voice was loud and Damien smiled, chuckling.  
"What are you doing?" He was tiny and perfect.  
Mark didn't answer, because it was obvious and he didn't want Damien to look stupid. Instead he ran over to him at full speed and threw himself at him; they tumbled and rolled together a metre down the hallway, Mark landing on top of him, gazing down at him, eyes full of wonder. He wanted to kiss him. He got so close, he could feel his breath. Damien wrapped his arms around his waist, but gently pulled him down so his head was resting on his chest. Mark didn't mind.  
"I'm going to tell you something," he said, softly onto the steady beat of Damien's heart. "And you have to promise never to tell anyone, okay?"  
He felt him nod, though it seemed tentative. Colours and lights blazed across him and the wooden floorboards. He was luminous and he could see his bones, the world behind his eyes if he wanted.  
"I'm not dying anymore," he was so excited, it was difficult to speak. "I need to stay with you, right here, forever and I won't die."  
After an odd sort of silence, Mark lifted his head to look at Damien. He was crying. Looking at him cry felt like dropping from a mountain.  
"Mark-" he began.  
Above his shoulder, there was a hole in the floor and through it a satellite's static chatter made his teeth tremble. Then it disappeared and there was only emptiness.  
He put his finger against his soft lips. "No," he said. "Don't say anything."


	8. Eight

He hadn't seen him for a while after that. Changed his mind about him after he saw him high. That pissed Mark off - that wasn't Damien's decision to make. He couldn't leave Mark wanting more, that just wasn't how it worked. 

He was uglier than he remembered. He saw him on the street from his window and bolted out the door to see him. Ugly people gave him a headache.   
"You're avoiding me." He stated. Damien looked surprised.   
"What? No, I've just been busy-" he sounded genuine enough.   
"Is that right?" He questioned.  
"Yeah."  
"So it's not because you think I'm an idiot?"   
Damien looked alarmed. "No! No, I don't think that."   
"Good." Mark said. "So when are you taking me out in your car then?" He gestured to midnight blue sports car parked close to them.   
Damien smiled, slowly. There it was - god he was gorgeous. Did he really think he was ugly? No, obviously not. 

He moved to take his keys out of his pocket and Mark's eyes followed him. It was weird now seeing him in something other than running gear, but a surprisingly tight-fitted tshirt wasn't too bad either. Damien eyed him up and down quickly, before shrugging off his jacket and handing it to him. Mark hated how soft and warm it felt in his hand.  
"It'll get cold when we go fast with the roof down," he smiled. He smiled a lot. "Just in case."   
Mark nodded. "What a gentleman." He cooed to which Damien just laughed. 

It wasn't what he had imagined; he hadn't been in a car as fast as this (anywhere near it in fact since he'd been laid off) and it didn't feel like anything he had felt before. Maybe it was the music or the sound of Damien breathing, the focused look in his eye or the slight, misty rain against his face. He stood, feet pressed on the floor to stabilise himself, shoulders, arms and face against the wind. If he was being honest, he didn't realise it was a convertible until Damien had given him his jacket. It seemed old, worn, but it kept the wind from his arms and he could smell him on it. 

They hadn't been going full speed yet, but even at half speed, Mark thought they could have taken off. They could have flown.   
They would leave the streets and lampposts and houses, leave the shops and industrial estate and the wood yard, and they would go beyond some kind of boundary where things belonged to the town and were understood. Trees, fields, space appeared. He shut his eyes, arms still out stretched by his sides, wondering where Damien was driving to. He imagined horses in the engine, their manes flying, their breath steaming, their nostrils flaring as they galloped. He had heard a story, once, about a nymph that had been snatched by a god and taken to some dark and dangerous place on the back of a chariot.

Where they did end up was a place where Mark hadn't considered: a muddy car park just off the dual carriageway. There were two large trucks parked, a couple of small cars and a hotdog stand.  
Damien turned off the ignition and helped Mark ease his way back to sitting. He stared at him for a moment and Mark couldn't speak. He felt as though he were on another plain, in another galaxy. He could feel the numb tingle of the wind on his cheeks still.   
"You get out first." Damien said, slowly, carefully.  
He nodded, his voice somehow lost in his throat; he had left his breath behind somewhere on the road. His knees shook when he stepped out onto the dusty ground. The earth felt very still. He looked around the car park; a man in a lorry held a steaming cup of tea, a girl with a ponytail passed a bag of chips across the counter to a man with a dog. He was different from them all. It was as if they flew there and everyone else was completely ordinary. 

Damien must have noticed Mark's questioning gaze, because he took his shoulder and guided him to the hotdog stand with an amused smile on his face.   
"This isn't the place, by the way," Mark felt tension he didn't realise he had leave his body, but whether that was Damien's words or his warm hand on his shoulder was a different matter. "We'll get something to eat first, then I'll show you."   
He seemed to understand that Mark couldn't quite talk yet and didn't wait for an answer. He walked slowly after him and listened to him order two hotdogs. Mark didn't know how that was suddenly the perfect lunch - the thought of a place like that would usually make him reel, but, as he watched Damien smile politely and make the server laugh over some funny remark, he thought it didn't really matter that day. 

They stood and ate, sharing a bottle of water. It seemed astonishing to him that he was here, that the world opened up from the roof of a car, that the sky had looked like silk, that he had seen the afternoon arrive, not white, not grey, not quite silver, but a combination of all three. Finally, when he finished and had thrown the wrapper in the bin, Damien said: "Ready?"

And he followed him through a gate at the back of the hotdog stand, across a ditch and into a thin little wood. A mud path threaded through and out to the other side, where space opened up. He hadn't realised how high they were. It was amazing, the whole town down there like someone had laid it at their feet.  
"Wow," he breathed. "I didn't know this view was here."   
"Yeah."

They sat together on a bench, their knees not quite touching. The ground was hard beneath his feet. The air was cold, smelling of frost that didn't quite make it, of winter to come.  
"This is where I go when I need to think," he said. "Celine gets the mushrooms from here."   
Celine, Mark mused, Celine and Damien.   
"Anything could be happening down there, but up here you just wouldn't know it." He spoke again after a small silence. Mark knew exactly what he meant. It could be a pandemonium in all the little houses, everyone's dreams in a mess, but up with them it felt peaceful. Clean.

Mark fiddled with the lining of his jacket; it was nice, sturdy material, but he thought he would at least have one label on it still. There it was, he turned the sleeve around and squinted at the faded label: Sandro. Parisian.   
"You went to Paris?" He was hoping for an extravagant story, a fun summer or work exchange.   
"Yeah," he flicked his eyes over to him for a second before focusing back on the town. "I grew up there."   
He was French? Well, Mark had noticed something in his accent. It was softer. "Why did you move here then? This isn't much compared to Paris." He smirked and he saw Damien attempt to weakly. He shook his head.  
"Well," he tapped his fingers on his knee. "We were eighteen when mum died. Thought it would be nice to have a change."   
Mark suddenly felt small as if he were watching from above. The air was still cold, he could still see Damien's breath out of his mouth. "I'm so sorry." He managed to whisper.  
Damien gave him a small smile. "It's okay."  
"Do you want to talk about it?" He didn't know why he said that, what his brain intended to happen. He just wanted to know him, tear him apart and read all his insides.   
"There's not much to say," he shrugged. "It was a road accident, someone was speeding. Two hours later the police were knocking on the door-"  
"Shit-"  
"Ever seen a scared policeman?"  
Mark was quiet. "No."  
"It's terrifying," he looked as though he had never said that before. "My dad backed himself into the wall and stared at them. They stood there in the hallway with their hats off and their knees shaking," he laughed through his nose, a soft sound with no humour to it. "They were only a bit older than us," he and Celine. Were they twins? "They didn't know how to handle it."  
"That's horrible."  
Damien sighed out a laugh again. "It didn't help. They took him to see mum's body - he wanted to," he added when Mark recoiled. "But they shouldn't have let him."  
"Did you go?"  
"We sat outside."  
He understood why Damien was different to Illinois or anyone else at work. It was a wound that connected them.   
"I thought that moving here would help," he shrugged loosely. "I think it's alright." The weight of the world seemed to fall on that word, but Mark knew he was being honest. He nodded.

He turned on the bench so that he was facing Mark. He looked as if he was really seeing him, as if he knew something about him that he didn't even know himself.   
"Are you afraid Mark?"  
No one had ever asked him that question before. Not ever. He looked at him to check that he wasn't taking the piss or asking out of politeness, but he returned a steady gaze. So he told him he was sometimes afraid of the dark, afraid of sleeping, afraid of mannequins and webbed fingers, of small spaces, of doors.   
"It comes and goes. Most of the time it's like being stalked by a psycho, like I might get shot at any second. But sometimes I forget for hours."  
"What makes you forget?"  
"People. Doing stuff. When you were around mine, I forgot for the whole afternoon."  
Damien nodded very slowly. There was a silence then, just a little one, but it had shape to it like a cushion round a sharp box.

"I like you, Mark." Damien spoke again.  
When he swallowed, his throat hurt. "You do?"  
"The day you came out to help me? You told me you watched me through your window. Most people don't talk that way."  
Mark grimaced. "Did it freak you out?"  
"The opposite." He looked at his feet as if they held the answers. "I can't give you what you want though."  
"What I want?"  
"I'm only just coping. If anything happened between us, it's kind of like, what would be the point?" He shifted on the bench. "This is coming out wrong."

Mark felt strangely untouchable as he stood up. He could feel himself closing some sort of internal window. It was the one that controlled temperature and feelings. He felt crisp as a winter leaf.  
"I'll see you around." He said, coolly.  
"You're going?" He looked shocked.  
"Yeah, I've got stuff to do in town," he ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry, didn't realise what the time was."  
"You have to go right now?"  
Mark shrugged. "I'm meeting friends. They'll be waiting for me."  
He fumbled around in his pockets for his car keys. "Well at least let me take you-"  
"No, no," he said, waving one hand in the air as if ushering him off. "I'll get one of them to pick me up. They've all got cars."  
Damien looked stunned. Ha! Mark thought, good. That would teach him to be the same as everyone else. Mark didn't even bother saying goodbye.  
"Wait!" He said.  
But Mark didn't and he didn't look back at him either. If he thought he was getting back in that car with him, he could think again. He made a fatal error thinking Damien could save him.


	9. Nine

He started with assault, shoving his elbow hard into a woman's back as he got on the bus. She spun around, crazy-eyed.   
"Ow!" She yelped. "Watch where you're going!"   
"It was him!" Mark told her, pointing to the man behind him. He didn't hear, too busy carrying a screaming child and yelling into his phone to know that he had just been slandered. The woman sidestepped him.  
"Asshole!" She yells.  
He heard that.

In the commotion, Mark dodged the fare and found himself a seat at the back. Three crimes in under a minute. Not bad.  
He rifled through the pockets of Damien's jacket, but all he found was some loose change and a receipt, so he couldn't have paid for the bus anyway. He forced himself to look out the window. They were in the avenue where he used to wait for Illinois to pick him up from work. There was the mini mart. He'd forgotten it had existed, though it was the first place in town to sell Slush Puppies. He and Illinois used to get one every day in the summer, just before he drove him home. He couldn't believe he let the mini mart slip his mind.

Left at the video shop, and a man wearing a white apron stood in the doorway of the Barbecue Café sharpening his knife. A rack of lamb slowly rotated in the window behind him. Dinner money bought a kebab and chips there two years ago, or, if you were Illinois, it bought a kebab and chips and a cigarette from under the counter. 

He missed him. He got off the bus in the market square and called him. He sounded like he was underwater.  
"Are you in a swimming pool?" Mark frowned.  
"I'm in the bath," he laughed. He was always so light hearted.  
"On your own?"  
"Of course I'm on my own!" But then the laugh came back again, but his voice seemed strained. Mark was quiet. "You need anything?"  
"Breaking the law." He stated.  
"What?"  
"It's number four on my list."  
"And how are you planning to do that?"  
Before, Mark pondered, he'd have an idea. But now of course, because of Yancy, he'd lost his definition. It was like their edges got blurred together.   
"I was thinking of killing the president. I fancy starting a revolution."  
"Funny," the humour seemed to have dropped from his voice. It made Mark sad. "Look I'll meet you down there in five." And he hung up the phone. Mark shoved it angrily in his pocket.

Mark looked at him as he got out of his car, slowly, and leant against the door for a second before walking over to him.   
"You alright?" Illinois' face seemed to change after he heard him ask that.  
He shrugged and smirked easily. "Shoplifting," he took Mark by the hand and led him over to the supermarket. "That's an easy one."

"Take a basket," Illinois instructed. "And watch out for store detectives."   
Mark bit his lip. "What do they look like?"  
"They look as if they're at work." He winked.

Mark walked slowly, savouring the details. Illinois had told him to put things he didn't want in the basket, like tomato soup or crackers, and things he liked in his coat. In Damien's coat.

The assistant at the pharmacy was discussing chesty coughs with a customer. Mark didn't think she was going to miss a tube of Relief Body Moisturizer or a small jar of Crème de Corps Nutritif. In the basket went crispbreads. In his pocket went Hydrating Face Cream. Tea bags for the basket. Signs of Silk Skin Treatment for him. It was like strawberry picking.  
"I'm good at this." Mark smirked. Illinois looked distant.  
"Great." He sounded distant too. He was fiddling with something on the pharmacy counter.   
"Chocolate aisle next," he smirked. Illinois didn't answer - he probably didn't hear him - so he just left him to it.

At the end of the aisle, by the freezers, his pockets were full. He was wondering how long Ben and Jerry's Phish Food would last in a coat when two girls he used to work with walked by. They stopped when they saw him, bent their heads close together and whispered. Mark was just about to text Illinois to let him know he needed to help him out when they strolled over.  
"Mark! Mark Fischbach!" The blonde one said.  
"Yeah." He nodded.  
"Do you remember us?" They giggled. "Beth and Olivia." She made it sound like they only came in a pair. "You left two years ago, didn't you?" They looked as if they were eyeing him up, trying to find any signs of weakness or change on him. Mark folded his arms.  
"Three."  
They both looked at him expectantly. Didn't they realise that they came from another planet - somewhere that spun much slower than his - and that he had absolutely nothing to say to them?

"How's it going?" Olivia said. Beth nodded, as if she agreed entirely with that question.   
"I'm here with Illinois," he replied, glancing around behind them to see if Illinois had appeared yet. "Illinois James. My plus one to work parties?"   
"Really?" Olivia nudged her friend. Mark frowned. "That's weird. He's the one I was telling you about."   
Beth brightened at that, relieved that normal conversation had risen again. "Is he helping you shop?" She sounded as if she were talking to a four year old. Mark knew he had two options here: show them up and humiliate them in front of the whole store or not waste his energy on anyone undeserving. He swallowed his pride thickly.   
"Not exactly."   
"Oh look!" Olivia turned around. "There he is. Do you know who I mean now?"   
Beth nodded. "Oh him!" Mark wanted to punch them. But he didn't. He was beginning to wish he hadn't said anything. A horrible feeling had risen in his stomach, but it was too late.   
Illinois didn't look too pleased to see them crowding around Mark. "What're you doing here?"   
"Talking to Mark." Spoken as if they were still in high school. Illinois raised his eyebrows.  
"About what?" His face looked pale.  
"Stuff and things." Mark almost gagged at the phrase.   
Illinois eyed him suspiciously. "Are you ready to go?"  
"Yeah."  
"Before you do," Olivia touched Illinois' sleeve. "Is it true you've been seeing Yancy Malone?"   
He hesitated. "What's it to you? You know him?"   
Olivia snorted, loud and ugly. Mark sneered. "Everyone knows him," she rolled her eyes at Beth. "He's the-"   
"Listen," Mark said, voice calm and strong. "Fascinating as this is, we've got to go now. I have to collect the invites for my funeral."  
That shut them up. Olivia looked astonished. "Really?"  
"Yeah," he grabbed Illinois's wrist. "It's a shame I can't be there myself - I like parties."   
They left them looking completely bewildered. 

He and Illinois went around the corner and stood in the kitchenware section, surrounded by cutlery and stainless steel.   
"They're just idiots, Illinois," Mark tried to look at his face. "They don't know anything." If he was honest, he didn't actually know how they were going to finish that sentence, but he knew that even the start of it hurt Illinois.   
He feigned interest in a pair of tongs. "I don't want to talk about it."   
"Let's do something to cheer ourselves up. Let's do," Mark glanced around the store. "As many illegal things as we can in an hour!"   
He seemed to flinch slightly at that, but he smiled reluctantly. "We could burn her house down."  
"You shouldn't listen to their bullshit you know."  
"Why not?"  
"Because you know him better than they do."

He'd never seen Illinois cry before, not ever. Not when he broke four bones or Mark told him he was dying. He always thought he was incapable. But he was crying then. In the supermarket. He was trying to hide it, blink rapidly and moving his hands to his face.  
"What? What is it?"  
"I have to go and find him." He said.  
"Now?"  
"I'm sorry." And he was.  
It felt very cold, watching him cry; how could he like Yancy that much? He'd only known him a month.   
"We haven't finished breaking the law yet."  
He nodded; tears slipped down his face. "Just dump the basket and walk out when you're done. I'm sorry. I have to go."   
Mark had been there before with exactly that view. His retreating back, his shoulders broad, his saunter as he got further and further away from him. Maybe he’d burn his house down instead.

It would be no fun without him though, so Mark put the basket down in a I-can’t-believe-I-forgot-my-wallet kind of way and stood scratching his head for a moment, before walking towards the doors. But just before he got there, he was grabbed by the wrist. He thought Illinois said store detectives would be easy to spot. He thought they’d be dressed badly in a suit and tie, that they wouldn’t wear a coat because they would be inside all day. That man was wearing a denim jacket and had close-cropped hair. 

“Are you going to pay for the items inside your jacket?” He said. “I have reason to believe you have concealed items from aisles five and seven about your person. This was witnessed by a member of our staff.”   
Mark took a small chocolate box out of his pocket and handed it to him. “You can have it back.” he said, smoothly.  
“You need to come with me now.”  
Heat spread from Mark’s neck to his face to his eyes. “I don’t want it-”  
“You intended to leave the store without paying.” He said and pulled him by the arm.

They walked down an aisle towards the back of the shop. Everyone could see him and their gazes burnt. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be pulled like this. He might not be a store detective at all: he could be trying to get him somewhere lonely and quiet. Mark dug his heels in and grabbed hold of a shelf. It was difficult to breathe.  
The man hesitated. “Are you okay? Do you have asthma or something?”  
Mark shut his eyes. “No, I’m.. I don’t want..” he couldn’t finish. Too many words fell off his tongue. The man frowned at him and got out his pager to ask for assistance. 

Two little kids, sitting in a trolley, stared at him as they were wheeled past. A high school girl sauntered past and back again, smirking. 

The woman who scurried up was wearing a name badge. Her name was Shirley and she frowned at him too. “I’ll take it from here,” her voice was raspy and aggravating to listen to. “Come on.”

Behind the fish counter was a secret office. You wouldn’t know it was there if you were ordinary. Shirley shut the door behind them. It was the kind of room you would get in police dramas on TV - small and airless, with a table and two chairs, lit by a fluorescent strip that flickers from the ceiling.   
“Sit down,” Shirley said. “Empty your pockets.”   
He didn’t really know why he did as he was told. He didn’t know a lot of things. The things he stole looked shabby and cheap on the table between them.  
“Well,” she said, an annoying pride filling her voice. “I’d call that evidence, wouldn’t you?”

He tried crying, but she didn’t fall for it. She passed him a tissue, though she could barely be bothered. She waited for him to wipe his eyes and pointed at the bin. Mark wanted to say a lot of things very loudly, but he thought about Abe. He didn’t want him to know. He didn’t want him to worry.  
“I need to ask you some questions,” she said. “Starting with your name.”


	10. Ten

There was a dead bird in the park, its legs were as thin as cocktail sticks. Mark was sitting in a deck chair under the apple tree watching it.   
“It definitely moved.” He told Abe. He stopped pacing to go and look at it, cigarette hanging out of his mouth.   
“Maggots,” he said and Mark sneered in disgust. “It can get so hot inside a dead body that the ones in the middle have to move to the edges to cool down.”  
“How the hell do you know that?” Mark felt himself reel again. Abe just shrugged, inspecting the carcass. He nudged it with his shoe until its stomach split open. Hundreds of maggots spilt onto the grass and writhed there, stunned by the sunlight. Mark threw up in his mouth.   
“See?” Abe continued, squatting down and poking at them gently with a stick. “A dead body is its own ecosystem. Under certain conditions, it only takes nine days for a human body to rot down to the bones.” He turned and looked at Mark thoughtfully. “That won’t happen to you though.”  
“No?”  
“It’s more when people are murdered and left outside.” Abe was a detective.  
Mark drew tiny circles on his palms before speaking softly. “What will happen to me, Abe?” He had a feeling that whatever Abe would say would be right, like he was some grand magician touched by cosmic truth. But he only shrugged and said,  
“I’ll find out and let you know.” He left after that, to go and find something to bury the bird with. Mark sat and guarded it.

Its feathers ruffled in the breeze. It was very beautiful, black with a sheen of blue, like oil on the ocean. Mark found himself noting that the maggots were beautiful too for some reason. They panicked on the grass, searching for the bird, for each other.   
And that was when Damien walked across the grass.

“Hey,” he said. “How are you?”  
Mark sat up in his deckchair. “You just happened to be passing by?”  
He shrugged with a nervous smile. “I was hoping to find you.” He was wearing jeans again, his t-shirt was baggy, but he had clearly made an effort with his hair. A few strands fell down on his face. “Here,” he said. He held out a bunch of wild green leaves to him. Amongst them were bright orange flowers. They looked like lanterns or baby pumpkins.   
“For me?”  
“For you.”  
His heart hurt. “I’m trying not to acquire new things.”  
He frowned. “Perhaps living things don’t count?”  
“I think they count more.” His voice was cold. Damien sat down on the grass next to his chair and put the flowers between them. The ground was wet; it would seep into him. Mark didn’t tell him this. He didn’t tell him about the maggots either. He wanted them to creep into his pockets.

Abe came back with a gardening trowel. The park was relatively small and the owners knew that he and Abe lived just across the street; they were allowed into the tools shed if they really needed to borrow something.   
“You planting something?” Damien asked him.  
“Dead bird.” Abe said nonchalantly, gesturing to the place where it lay.   
Damien looked like he tried to swallow something. He was uncomfortable. Mark smirked. Good. After a second, he leant over to it. “That’s a rook,” Abe nodded. “Did a cat get it?”  
“Don’t know,” Abe was never one for conversation; it made Mark feel special. “I’m going to bury it though.” He walked a few metres back, found a spot amongst the trees and started to dig. The earth was as wet as cake mix. Where the spade met little stones, it sounded like shoes on gravel. 

Damien plucked at bits of grass and sieved them between his fingers. “I’m sorry about the other day.”  
“It’s okay.” Mark didn’t look at him.  
“It didn’t come out right-”  
“It’s really okay,” there was more aggression in his voice than he thought there was going to be. “We don’t have to talk about it.”  
He nodded very seriously, still threading grass, still not looking at him. “You are worth bothering with.”  
“I am?”  
“Yeah.” He was serious. He’d never heard him this serious.  
“So you want to be friends?”  
Damien looked up. “If you want to.”  
A sly smirk spread across Mark’s face. “And you’re sure there's point to it?” He enjoyed watching Damien blush, the confusion in his eyes.  
“I think there’s a point.”  
“Then you’re forgiven.” Mark didn’t know if he was lying or not. He held out his hand and they shook on it. Damien’s hand was warm.

Abe came over,hands smeared in dirt. He looked like an undertaker. “The grave’s ready.” He said. Damien helped him roll the rook onto the spade. It was stiff and looked heavy. Its injury was obvious - a red gash at the back of its neck; its head lolled drunkenly as they carried it between them over to the hole. Damien talked to it quietly as they walked.   
“Poor bird,” he whispered. “Come on, time to rest.” He was gentle. Mark wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and followed them across the grass to watch them tip it in. One eye shone up at them. He recoiled. It looked peaceful, though, even grateful; its feathers were darker.   
“Should we say something?” Abe mutters. Mark huffed out a laugh.  
“Goodbye, bird?” He suggested.  
He nodded. “Goodbye bird. Thank you for coming. Good luck.” He scooped mud over it, but left the head uncovered, as if it might like to take one last look around.  
“What about the maggots?” Damien asked.   
Mark shuddered. “What about them?”  
“Won’t they suffocate?”   
“I’ll leave an air hole.” Abe said, sarcastically, but still, while crumbling the earth over the bird’s head, made a hole for the maggots with a stick. “Get some stones, Mark, then we can decorate it.” Abe only added this part in because Mark always wanted everything to look aesthetically pleasing and Mark knew it. He didn’t question it though, and wandered off to look. Damien stayed with Abe. He told him that rooks were very sociable, that he probably had friends who would be grateful for the burial. Abe looked bored. He was probably just trying to impress Mark.

He found two white stones which were almost perfectly round; there was a snail’s shell, a red leaf, a soft grey feather. He held them in his hands. They were so lovely that he had to lean against the trunk of a tree and close his eyes. It was a mistake. Like falling into darkness.  
There was earth on his head. He was cold. Worms burrow. Termites and woodlice came. He felt sick.  
He tried to focus on good things, but it was so hard to scramble out. He opened his eyes to the rough fingers of the apple tree. A spider’s web quivering silver. His warm hands clutching the stones. But all that was warm would go cold. His ears would fall off and his eyes would melt. His mouth would be clamped shut. His lips would turn to glue.

Damien appeared. “Are you alright?”

Mark concentrated on breathing. In. Out. But breathing brought the opposite when you became aware of it. His lungs would dry up like paper fans. Out. Out.

He touched his shoulder. “Mark?”

No taste or smell or touch or sound. Nothing to look at. Total emptiness forever.

Abe jogged up. “What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing.” Was that his voice?  
“You look dizzy.”  
“I got dizzy bending down.”  
“We should go-”  
“Finish the grave, Abe. I’ll be okay.” He gave him the things he collected and reluctantly Abe ventured back to the grave. Damien stayed. A blackbird flew low by the grass. The sky was griddled pink and grey. Breathe. In. In.  
“What is it?” He asked.

How could he tell him?

He reached out and touched Mark’s back delicately with the flat of his hand. Mark didn’t know what that meant. His hand was firm, moving in gentle circles. They had agreed to be friends. Was that what friends do? Damien’s heat came through the weave of the blanket, through his coat, his jumper, his T-shirt. Through his skin. It hurt so much that thoughts were difficult to find. His body became all sensation.

“Stop it.”  
“What?”  
Mark shrugged him off. “Can’t you just go away?”  
There was a moment. It had a sound in it, as if something very small got broken.  
“You want me to go?”  
“Yes. And don’t come back.”

He walked across the grass. He said goodbye to Abe and left the park. Except for the flowers by the chair, it was as if he’d never been there at all. He picked them up and held them to his chest. Then saw Abe watching and thrust them into his hands.   
“These are for the bird.”  
“Cool.” He lay them on the damp earth and they stood together looking at the grave.


	11. Eleven

Abe was taking a while to discover that he was missing. Mark wished he would hurry up because his left leg had gone to sleep and he needed to move before he got gangrene or something. He shuffled to a squatting position, grabbed a jumper from the shelf above him and pushed it down with one hand amongst the shoes so that he would have a better place to sit. The closet door creaked open a fraction as he settled. It sounded very loud for a moment. Then it stopped.

“Mark?” The bedroom door eased open and Abe tiptoed across the carpet. “Did you hear me call?” Through the crack in the closet door, he could see the confusion on his face as he realised that the bundle on the bed was only the duvet. He lifted it up and looked underneath as if he might have shrunk into someone very small since he last saw him at breakfast. “Shit.” He said and rubbed a hand across his face as if he didn’t understand, walking over to the window and looking out across the garden. 

After a moment he walked away from the window and moved to the bookshelf, running a finger along the spines of his books like they were piano keys and he was expecting a tune. He twisted his head to look up at the CD rack, picked one out, read the cover then put it back. It was Bowie. He sighed and looked as though he was about to walk out the door, when he leant to straighten the duvet on his bed. He read the wall for a bit - all the things he was going to miss, all the things he wanted. He shook his head at it, then bent down and picked up a t-shirt from the floor, folded it and placed it on his pillow. And that was when he noticed the bedside drawer was slightly open. 

He sat on the edge of the bed, sliding the drawer open with one finger. Inside were pages and pages of words Mark had written about his list. His thoughts on the things he had already done - sex, drugs, breaking the law - and his plans for the rest. He didn’t read it though, Mark could tell. He was a man who valued privacy above all else. He just sat on the bed, gently opening and closing the drawer. When he finally pressed it shut and stood to walk out, Mark wanted to run over and hug from behind. He didn’t want to let go. But he didn’t. And Abe walked out of the room.


	12. Twelve

When Illinois came to the door, he looked like a mess. He was wearing the same clothes as the last time he had seen him.  
“Coming to the seaside?” Mark jangled the car keys at him.  
He peered past him to Abe’s car. “Did you come here on your own?”  
“Yeah.”  
“But you can’t drive!” He almost laughed. Almost.   
“I can now - it’s number five on my list.”  
He frowned slightly. “Have you ever had any lessons?”  
“Sort of.” He shrugged. “Can I come in?”

His house was always incredibly tidy, like something from a catalogue. He didn’t spend much time there, so it made sense that he didn’t have time to mess it up. He followed Illinois into the lounge and sat on the sofa. He sat opposite him on the edge of an armchair and folded his arms.  
“So Abe lent you the car, huh?” There was a smirk playing at his lips. “Even though you’re not insured and it’s completely illegal?”  
“He doesn’t exactly know I’ve got it,” he winked. “But I’m really good at driving, you’ll see.” Illinois shook his head in disbelief and slight amusement. Mark was put-out: he should be proud of him. He got away without Abe even noticing. He remembered to check the mirrors before turning on the ignition, then clutch down, into first, clutch up, accelerator down. He had managed three times around the block and only stalled twice, which was his best ever. He navigated the roundabout and even got into third gear along the main road to Illinois’ house. And now he was sitting there glaring at him like it was all some terrible mistake.  
“You know,” he said as he stood up and zipped back up his coat. “I thought if I made it this far without crashing, the only difficult thing left would be the freeway. It didn’t cross my mind that you’d be a pain in the ass.”  
He shuffled his feet on the floor, as if rubbing something out. His face seemed paler again. “Sorry. It’s just that I’m kinda busy.”  
“Doing what?” This was an outrage.  
He shrugged. “You can’t just assume everyone’s free just because you are.” There was humour to his tone. Mark didn’t like it. In fact, he felt something inside him as he looked at him and realised in one clear moment that he didn’t like him at all.  
“You know what,” he said. “Forget it. I’ll do that list by myself.”  
Illinois stood up, almost looking offended. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t come!” But he was clearly bored of him. It was obvious. Mark could almost yawn. He bet he wished he would hurry up and die so he could get on with his life.  
“No, no,” Mark told him. “You stay here. Everything always turns out crap with you around anyway!”  
He followed him out into the hallway. “No it doesn’t!”  
Mark turned on the mat. “I meant for me. Haven’t you ever noticed how any shit that’s falling always lands on my head?!”  
He frowned. “When? When does that happen?” His calm tone pissed Mark off the most. He could hit him.  
“All the time.” He could see the hurt rise in Illinois’ eyes now. Good. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re only friends with me so you can keep being the lucky one!”  
“Fuck!” he said, finally slipping. “Can you stop talking about yourself for even a minute?”  
“Shut up!” he yelled. And it felt so good to say it again.  
“No,” he said. “You shut up.” But his voice was barely a whisper, which was odd. He took one small step away, paused as if he was going to say something else, thought better of it and ran up the stairs. 

Mark didn’t follow him. He waited in the hall for a bit, feeling the thickness of the carpet under his feet. He listened to the clock. He counted sixty ticks then went into the lounge and turned on the TV. He watched an amateur gardening programme for seven minutes. He learnt that in a south-facing plot you could grow apricots, even in England. He wondered if Damien knew this. But then he got bored with aphids and red spider mites and the drone of the stupid man’s voice, so he turned it off and texted Illinois: “Sorry.”

He looked out the window to see if the car was still there, which it was. The sky was murky, the clouds really low down and the colour of sulphur. He’d never driven in rain, which was a bit worrying. He wished it was still October. It was warm then, as if the world had forgotten autumn was supposed to be next. He remembered looking at the leaves fall past his bedroom window.  
Illinois texted him back: “Me too.”

He came downstairs and into the lounge. He was wearing a shirt now, tucked into an old pair of jeans. He walked over and gave him a hug. He smelt nice. Mark leant against his shoulder and he kissed the top of his head.

He laughed when Mark stalled the car immediately as he started it. He tried again and as they kangaroo-ed down the road, he told him how Abe tried to teach him to drive five times, but none of them really worked.  
“I’ll doubt he’ll notice the car is missing until lunch time.” He told him. “And, even then, what’s he going to do? Like you said, I’m immune to any form of rules.”  
Illinois smiled. “You’re a complete hero,” he said. “You’re fantastic!”  
And they laughed like old times. Mark had forgotten how much he liked laughing with Illinois. He wasn’t critical of his driving like Abe had been. He wasn’t scared when he scraped into third gear, or when he forgot to indicate left at the end of his road. He was a much better driver with him watching.

“Fuck.” He said, and stabbed a finger at the window. There was a gang of boys on bikes blocking the road ahead. They had their hoods up, cigarettes shielded. The sky was a really strange colour and there was hardly anyone else about. He slowed right down.  
“What shall I do?”  
“Reverse,” Illinois shrugged. “They’re not going to move.”  
Mark wound down his window. “Hey!” He yelled. “Move your asses!”  
They turned languid, shifted lazily to the edge of the road and grinned as he blew kisses at them.  
Illinois smirked. “What’s got into you?”  
“Nothing - I just haven’t learnt reversing yet.”

They got caught in traffic on the main road. He watched snatches of other people’s lives through the window. A baby cried in its car seat, a man drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. A woman picked her nose. A child waved.  
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Mark said.  
“What?”  
“I’m me and you’re you and all of them out there are them. And we’re all so different and equally unimportant.”  
Illinois nodded. He was quiet.  
Out of town, onto the dual carriageway. The sky got darker and darker. It was great.  
“This is the worst drive I’ve ever been on,” he joked. “I kinda feel sick - why aren’t we arriving anywhere?”  
“Because I’m ignoring the road signs.” They both laughed again.

He pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator. Thirty. Thirty-five. So much power in his hands. Rain spotted the windscreen. The shine of it on the glass made everything blur and reflect. It looked like electricity, not like water at all. He counted silently in his head until lightning broke across the sky.  
“One kilometre away.” He told him. Illinois chuckled.

Rain hit the roof of the car hard then and he didn’t know where the wipers were. He fumbled with the light switches, the horn, the ignition. He forgot the car was in fourth gear and immediately stalled. Mark jumped.  
“Fuck!”  
He put the car back in neutral. He didn’t feel scared anymore. Water ran down the windscreen in waves, and the cars behind them beeped and flashed at them as they passed, but he calmly checked his mirrors, turned on the ignition, then into first gear and away. He even found the wipers as he slipped through second gear into third. 

The storm was loud, with no space between thunder and lightning. Other cars had put their lights on, even though it was still day time. Mark couldn’t seem to find theirs though. Instead, he discovered a fifth gear he didn’t even know existed. They were speeding along the carriageway and the sky was alight with forked lightning. He’d never seen it up close before.


	13. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> probably should remember/reread the summary for this chapter lol

Four twenty and the sea was grey. So was the sky, although the sky was slightly lighter and not moving so fast. The sea made him dizzy - something about the never-ending movement and how no one could stop it, even if they wanted to.   
“It’s crazy here.” Illinois said, staring out into the abyss. They were sitting on a bench on the seafront; the place was practically deserted. Far away, across the sand, a dog barked at the waves. Its owner was the tiniest dot on the horizon.   
“I used to come here every summer with Abe,” Mark said suddenly. “Before all of this. We used to stay at the Crosskeys Hotel.” Illinois smirked at him, but it soon faded into grey too. They sat, for a moment, in silence, before Mark grabbed his arm and pulled him up. “Come on,” he said, determined. “I’ll show you the hotel we stayed in!”

They walked along the promenade. Below them, the sand was covered in cuttlefish. They were heavy and scarred as if they had been flung against each other with every tide. Mark made a joke about picking them up and selling them at a pet shop for budgies, but it was really strange. He didn’t remember that happening when he used to go there.  
“Maybe it’s a fall thing,” Illinois said. “Or pollution. The whole crazy planet’s dying.” They stood for a bit looking at the sea together. It rushed, whitened and retreated.  
“I’m glad you’re my friend, Illinois,” Mark mumbled, taking his hand in his own and holding it tightly.

They continued to walk to the harbour. Mark almost told him about Damien and the car ride and what happened on the hill, but it felt too difficult and he really didn’t want to talk about it. He got lost in remembering the seaside instead. Everything was so familiar - he was even able to find the alley near the harbour that was a shortcut to the hotel.   
“It looks different,” he mused. “It used to be bigger.”  
“But it’s the right place?”  
Mark nodded, opening the gate and walking up the little path. “I wonder if they’ll let me look at the room we used to stay in.” He heard Illinois breathe out a laugh and position himself waiting by the wall. 

A middle-aged woman opened the door. She looked kind and fat and wore a green apron. He didn’t remember her. “Yes?”  
He told her that he used to come there every summer a few years before and that they always had the top room booked for two weeks.  
“And you’re looking for a room for tonight?” She asked.. which hadn’t actually crossed Mark’s mind, but it suddenly sounded like a lovely idea.   
“Can we have the same one?”  
Illinois strolled up the path behind him, slight urgency in his step. He grabbed his arm and spun him around. “What are you doing?”  
“Booking a room.”  
“I can’t stay here,” which, of all the responses, Mark wasn’t expecting. He felt cross. “I’ve got work tomorrow-”  
“You’ve always got work,” he glared. “And you’ve got lots more tomorrows.” He thought that sounded rather eloquent and it certainly seemed to shut Illinois up. He slouched back on the wall and gazed up at the sky. Mark turned back to the woman.   
“Sorry about that.” He said, charm flooding back to his voice. He liked her; she wasn’t at all suspicious.   
“There’s a four-poster bed in there now,” she said. “But it’s still en-suite.”  
“Good. We’ll take it.”

They followed the lady upstairs. Her bottom was huge and swayed as she walked. He wondered what it would be like to have her as a mother.   
“Here we go,” she said as she opened the door. “We’ve completely redecorated, so it probably looks different.”  
It did. The four-poster bed dominated the room; it was high and old-fashioned and draped in velvet.  
“We get lots of honeymooners here.” The woman explained.   
“Fantastic!” Illinois laughed. Mark didn’t like the air of sarcasm in his voice. 

It was difficult to see the sunny room he used to wake up in every summer. The queen-sized bed was gone, the white covers changed, replaced by a table with a kettle and tea things. The arched window was familiar though, and the same fitted closets lined one wall.   
“I’ll leave it to you.” Said the woman.

Illinois kicked off his shoes and hauled himself onto the bed. “This room is $150 a night,” he grimaced at Mark. “Do you actually have any money on you?”  
“I just wanted to look.”  
“Fuck.” Mark climbed on the bed next to him. “You insane?”  
Mark laughed. “No,” he shuffled himself up to Illinois. “But it’s going to sound stupid out loud.”  
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at him suspiciously. “Try me.”

So he told him about the last summer he ever came there, how work was really pissing Abe off and he hadn’t had a break all holiday. He told him that one morning, at breakfast, Abe wouldn’t eat, said he was sick of it all and that it would have been cheaper to go to Benidorm.   
“Go then.” said some angry old man from the bar. The old git had been listening - it hurt Mark. So Abe took his hand and they went back upstairs to the room.   
“Let’s hide from them.” He whispered. They hid in the closet. “Nobody will find us here.” And nobody did, although he wasn’t sure anyone was actually looking. They sat there for ages, until Abe eventually crept out to get a pen from the table, then came back and wrote his name very carefully on the inside of the wardrobe door. He passed him the pen and Mark wrote his name next to his.   
“There,” he said. “Even if we never come back, we’ll always be here.”

Illinois eyed Mark, thoughtfully. “Every few years we disappear, Illinois. All our cells are replaced by others. Not a single bit of me is the same as when I was last in this room. I was someone else when I wrote my name in there, someone alive.” He nodded. “Can you look in the closet and see?”  
Illinois stared for a moment, as if in limbo, at the closet across the room. Then his face hardened. He scrambled off the bed, letting Mark fall onto the pillows. “I’m leaving.” He got his coat from where he dumped it by the door and yanked on it. “You go on and on about yourself, like you’re the only one in the world with anything wrong-”  
“What’s wrong with you?” He didn’t know what to say when Illinois was actually angry.   
“Same question,” he shouted. “Right back at you!”  
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he snarled. “Apart from the obvious.”  
His voice dropped down to a low hum, but his face didn’t change at all. “Then I’m fine too.”  
“No you’re not,” Mark frowned. “Look at you.”  
“Look at me, what? What do I look like?”  
“Sad.”  
He faltered by the door. “Sad?”

There was a terrible stillness; Mark noticed a small tear in the wallpaper above his shoulder. He noticed finger marks grimed on the light switch. Somewhere down in the hotel, a door opened and shut. As Illinois turned to face him, Mark realised that life was made up of a series of moments, each one a journey to the end.  
When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy and dull. “I’m pregnant.”  
“Oh my god!”  
“I wasn’t going to tell you-”  
“Are you sure?”  
He sunk down onto the floor next to the door. “I did two tests.”  
Mark was silent for a moment. “Does Yancy know?”  
“Yancy’s in prison.” Mark could see the tears in Illinois’ eyes as he blinked them back. He swallowed thickly. Why was his boyfriend in prison? What the hell happened? “Those girls were right.” Mark wanted to walk over and stroke his shoulders, the tough curve of his spine. He didn’t though, because he didn’t think he’d want him to.  
“What will you do?”  
Illinois shrugged, and in that shrug he saw his fear. He looked about twelve. He looked like a kid on a boat, travelling some big sea with no food or compass.  
“You could have it, Illinois.”  
“That’s not even funny.”  
“It wasn’t meant to be. Have it. Why not?”  
“I’m not having it because of you!” Mark could tell that wasn’t the first time he had thought of that.   
“Get rid of it then.”  
He groaned softly as he leant his head against the wall behind him and stared hopelessly up at the ceiling. “I’m over three months.” He said. “Do you think that’s too late? Do you think they’ll even let me?” He wiped the first tears he let fall from his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m so stupid! How could I have been so stupid?” Mark didn’t know what to say to him; he didn’t know if he’d even hear him if he could think of anything. He felt very far away sitting on the floor. “I just want it gone,” he said, weakly. Then he looked right at him. “Do you hate me?”  
“No.”  
“Will you hate me if I get rid of it?”  
He might. He didn’t know why he might, he just felt it. He didn’t believe in reincarnation, but it would be alive after Mark was long gone. He knew that Illinois would be a good father to it. “I’m going to make tea.” He told him.

There were shortbread biscuits on a plate and little sachets of sugar and milk. It was a very nice room. He looked out of the window while he waited for the kettle to boil. Two boys were playing football on the promenade. It was raining and they had their hoods up. He didn’t know how they could see the ball. He and Illinois were down there just a moment before, in the cold and wind. He had held Illinois’ hand. 

“There are daily boat trips from the harbour,” he told him. “Maybe they go somewhere warm and far away.”  
“I’m going to sleep,” he said. “Wake me up when it’s over.” But he didn’t move from his seated position on the floor and he didn’t close his eyes.

A family walked past the window. A dad pushing a buggy and a small girl in a pink, shiny raincoat clutching her mum’s hand in the rain. She was wet, maybe cold, but she knew that she’d be home and dry soon. Warm milk. Children’s TV. He wondered what her name was. Rosie? Amber? She looked like her name would have a colour in it. Scarlett?

He didn’t really mean to. He didn’t even think about it at first. He simply walked across the room and opened the closet door. He startled the hangers and they chinked together. The smell of damp wood filled him.   
“Is it there?” Asked Illinois.  
The inside of the door was glossy and white. A total repaint. He touched it with his fingers, but it stayed the same. It was so bright it made the room waver at the edges. Every few years they disappeared.  
Illinois sighed and leant back against the wall. “You shouldn’t have looked.”  
He shut the closet door and went back to the kettle.

He counted as he poured water onto the teabags. Illinois was over three months pregnant. A baby needed nine months to grow. It would be born in June, same as Mark. He liked June. You got the sun and bright green leaves. Lawnmowers. The drowsy smell of fresh cut grass. It was one hundred and fifty-four days until June.


	14. Fourteen

Mark walked with Abe across the dark, wet grass. His boots gathered thick, brown mud.   
“Next.” Abe held out his hand to Mark as he crouched down to look at the array of fireworks. He felt like he was choosing a chocolate, delicately picking one out, then reading the label before passing it over.   
“Enchanted Garden.” He told him. They both made their way back to the set-up. Moonlight filtered through the apple tree and splashed on the grass. It was cold. Their breath was like smoke. As winter was there, the earth smelt wet, as if life was hunkering down, things crouching low, preserving energy.

“Do you know how genuinely horrible it is when you go off and don’t tell anyone where you are?” Since Abe was the greatest disappearing expert of all time, Mark laughed at that. He looked surprised. He obviously didn’t get the irony. “You slept for two solid days when you got back.”  
“I was tired.”  
“I was terrified.” He bent down to put the firework in place, then stood back up and gently pulled Mark back. “Enchanted Garden.” He announced. There was a sudden crackle, and flowers made of light bloomed into the air, expanded, then sank and faded across the grass.  
“That was pretty.” Mark sighed, wistfully. He thought of the bird, of all the creatures that had died in the park, their skeletons jostling together under the earth.

“Why the seaside?” Abe asked as he pushed the stick of the aptly named Rocket firework into the soil.   
“I just fancied it.” He shrugged.  
“Why my car?”  
He shrugged again. “Driving was on my list.”  
“You know,” he focused on the unlit firework. “You can’t go around just doing what you like. You have to think about the people who love you.”  
“Who?”  
He bent down and lit the firework, ushering Mark back again. “Loud one.” He said. The rocket launched with a single boom, so loud its energy expanded inside him. Sound waves broke in his blood. His brain felt tidal. Abe had never said he loved him. Not once. He didn’t think he ever would. It would be too obvious, too full of pity and it would embarrass them both. Sometimes Mark wondered about the quiet things that must have happened while he was in the hospital for the first time, when Abe sat next to him for three solid days. But he didn’t wonder that very often. 

Abe shifted uncomfortably on the balls of his feet. “Mark, are you planning to kill anyone?” He sounded casual, but Mark thought he might genuinely have meant it.  
“Of course not.” He laughed.  
“Good.” He looked relieved. “So what’s next on your list then?”  
Mark was surprised. “You really want to know?”  
“I really do.” He did.  
“Okay, fame’s next.” He saw Abe raise an eyebrow, so he added quietly: “I miss it.”

“Twenty-one-shot Cascade.” He said, stepping back with Mark. They counted them, shooting up with a soft phut, bursting into clusters of stars, then slowly drifting down again. He wondered if the grass would be stained sulphur-yellow, vermilion, aquamarine by the morning. 

In the kitchen, Mark swilled his mouth out with water at the sink and spat it out. His spit looked slimy and was pulled so slowly towards the plughole that he had to chase it down with more water from the tap. The sink was cold against his skin. He turned off the light and walked out onto the balcony and watched a couple walk along the street below him. He heard Abe shut his bedroom door. 

Perhaps Mark was dead. Perhaps that was all it would be. The living would carry on in their world - touching, walking. And he would continue in whatever this empty world was, tapping soundlessly on the glass between them. 

He went out the apartment door, hopping silently down the stairs and out the main entrance. He sat on the step. The undergrowth rustled, as if some night creature was trying to hide itself from him, but he didn’t feel scared, he didn’t even move. As his eyes adjusted, he could see the starting of the park and the bushes that lined it. He could see the street quite clearly, lamplight splashing across the pavement, slanting across other people’s cars, reflecting back from other people’s blank windows. He could smell hotdogs, kebabs and chips. If his life was different, he’d be out with Illinois. They’d have chips. They’d be standing on some street corner, licking salty fingers, waiting for action. But instead, he was there. Dead on the doorstep. 

He heard Damien before he saw him, the guttural roar of his car. As he got closer, the noise vibrated the air, so that the trees seemed to dance. He parked almost opposite the complex, switched off the engine and turned off the lights. Silence and darkness descended again as he got out, locked the car door and sat on the bonnet. 

Mark mostly believed in chaos. If wishes came true, his lungs wouldn’t fill up. There wouldn’t be a mist in front of his eyes that he couldn’t brush away. But watching Damien sit with his knees at his chin, staring off into the park felt like he had a choice. The universe may have been random, but Mark could make something different happen.

He pushed himself up and silently crossed the road. Damien didn’t see him, too focused in longing at the sky. Mark felt very powerful and certain.   
“Damien?”  
He turned around, slipping off the car, startled. “Shit- I thought you were a ghost!” A half smile fell on his lips when he saw Mark’s face. There was a cold-washed smell to him, as if he was an animal that had come out of the night. He took a step closer. “What are you doing?” he asked.  
“We said we’d be friends.”  
He looked confused. “Yeah?”  
“I don’t want to be.” There was space between them and in that space was darkness. He took another step, so close that they shared breath. The same one. In and out.  
“Mark.” He said. Mark knew it was a warning, but he didn’t care.  
“What’s the worst thing that can happen?”  
“It’ll hurt.” He said.  
“It already hurts.”  
Damien nodded very slowly. And it was like there was a hole in time, as if everything stopped and that one minute, where they looked at each other so closely, was spread out between them. As Damien leant towards him, he felt a strange warmth filtering through him. He forgot that his brain was full of every sad face at every window that he’d ever passed. As he leant closer, Mark could only feel the warmth of his breath on his skin. They kissed very gently. Hardly at all, like they weren’t sure. Their lips were the only place that they touched.

They stood back and looked at each other. What words were there for the look that passed from Mark to Damien and back again? Around them all the night things gathered and stared. The lost things were found again.  
“Fuck, Mark!”  
“It’s alright,” he told him. “I won’t break.” And to prove it, he pushed him back against a tree on the side of the park and kept him there. It wasn’t about tenderness anymore. His tongue was in his mouth, searching, meeting his. His arms wrapped around him. His hand was on the back of his neck. Mark melted there, his hand sliding down his back. He pushed himself closer, but not close enough. He wanted to climb inside him. Live in him. Be him. It was all tongue and longing. He licked him, taking small bites on the edges of his lips. He never realised he was hungry.

Damien pulled away. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck!” And he ran his hand through his hair; it gleamed wet, animal dark. The streetlights blazed in his eyes. “What’s happening to us?”  
“I want you.” Mark told him. His heart was thumping. He felt absolutely alive.


	15. Fifteen

“Where are we going?”   
Abe took one hand off the steering wheel to pat Mark on the knee. “All in good time.”  
“Is it going to be embarrassing?”  
“I hope not.” Abe was good at hiding everything. Mark frowned.  
“Am I going to meet someone famous?”   
Abe looked alarmed for a moment. “Is that what you meant?”  
“Not really.” He shrugged.

They drove through the town and Abe still wouldn’t tell him. They drove past the housing estates and onto the ring road, and Mark’s guesses got completely random. He liked making Abe laugh. He didn’t do it much.  
“Moon landing?”  
“No.”  
“Talent competition?”  
“There would be none with you there.”

He wrote Damien a text: “Where the hell are you?” Then deleted it. Six nights ago, Damien had told Mark to give him his phone number and that he would call him, before the police gave him a ticket for parking in the wrong place. They had swapped numbers. It was erotic. He thought it was a promise.

“Fame,” Abe repeated. “Now, what do you mean by fame, huh?”  
Mark meant Shakespeare. The silhouette of him with his beard, quill in hand, was on the front of every school’s books. He invented shitloads of new words and everyone knew who he was after hundreds of years. He lived before cars and planes, guns and bombs and pollution. Before pens. Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne when he was writing. She was famous too, not just for being Henry VIII’s daughter, but for potatoes and the Armada and tobacco and for being so clever.  
Then there was Marilyn. Elvis. Even modern icons like Madonna would be remembered. Elton John was touring again and sold out in milliseconds. His eyes were etched with age, but people still wanted a piece of him. Fame like that is what Mark meant. He’d like the whole world to stop what they were doing and go and say goodbye to him when he died. What else was there?  
“What do you mean by fame, Abe?”  
After a minute’s thought, he said, “Leaving something of yourself behind, I guess.” Mark thought of Illinois and his baby. Growing and growing.  
“Okay,” Abe said. “Here we are.”

Mark wasn’t sure where ‘here’ was. It looked like a library, one of those square, functional buildings with lots of windows and its own car park with allocated spaces for the director. They pulled into a parking bay. The woman at the intercom wanted to know who they had come to see. Abe tried to whisper, but she couldn’t hear, so he had to say it again louder.  
“Bim Trimmer.” He said and gave him a sideways glance.  
“Bim Trimmer?” A radio presenter - Mark smiled. He missed being on the radio.  
Abe nodded, pleased with himself. “One of the guys I worked with knows him,” he paused for a moment before continuing. “He wants to interview you.”  
Mark grinned. “About what?” He didn’t want to talk about dying or the list or anything else. He wanted to talk about songs he grew up with and his best friend and his favourite animals. He wanted people to be interested in it. To remember it.  
“Anything.” He smiled.


	16. Sixteen

Mark lay down on the balcony and tried to imagine it. Really, really. He was dead. He was turning into the soil. It was a bit difficult though. He wondered about the bird he had seen earlier, if it had flown away. He wondered what Abe and Damien were doing indoors, if they missed him yet. He turned over and pressed his face on the cool tiles; it pushed coldly back at him. He pressed his fingertips against it. It smelt of rain.

“What are you doing?” Mark turned around very slowly, carefully. Damien’s face was upside down. “I’d thought I’d come and look for you. Are you alright?”  
Mark sat up and straightened out his t-shirt. “I’m fine. I was hot.”  
He nodded, as if that explained why he was lying out on the balcony in the dark. Mark looked like an idiot - he knew he did. He also had his t-shirt tucked into the waistband of his trousers, so the tiles didn’t touch his bare skin. He untucked it quickly. Damien took a seat next to him and they both looked out across the road into the night.

Mark could feel him watching him. His thoughts were so clear that he wouldn’t be surprised if Damien could see them blazing above his head like a neon sign outside a malt shop. I like you. I like you. Flash. Flash. Flash. With a neon red heart glowing beside the words. He lay on his back to get away from his gaze. Cold seemed to seep through his trousers like water. Damien lay down next to him, right next to him. It hurt and it hurt to have him that close. He felt sick with it.  
“That’s Orion’s Belt.” Mark said. He had to say something, tell him anything. Space was his escape.  
“What is?” His voice was gentle.  
He pointed up at the velvet sky. “See those three stars in a line? Mintaka, Alnilam, Alnitak.” They somehow bloomed at the end of his finger as he named them.  
“How do you know that?”  
“I just find it fascinating. If you point binoculars below Orion, you’ll see a gas cloud where all new stars are born.”   
“New stars? I thought the universe was dying.” He held such a sadness in his tone when he said this.  
“It depends which way you look at it. It’s also expanding.” There was a warm silence.

Damien rolled over onto his side and propped himself up with one elbow. “I’ve been hearing from Abe about you being famous.” He grinned.  
Mark rolled his eyes dramatically. “Did he tell you it was a complete disaster?”  
He laughed. “No, but now you have to.” Mark liked making him laugh. He had a beautiful mouth and it gave him the chance to look at him. So he told him about the end and how the radio presenter kept wanting to talk about death; he made it sound much funnier than it really was. He sounded heroic, an anarchist of the airwaves. Then, because it was going so well, he told him about Abe’s car and driving Illinois to the hotel. They lay on the white tiles of the balcony with the sky massive above them, the moon low and bright, and he told him about the closet, and how his name was gone from the world. He even told him about his habit of writing on the walls. It was easy to talk in the dark - he never knew that before.

When he finished talking, Damien said: “You shouldn’t worry about being forgotten, Mark.” Then he said, “Do you reckon he’ll miss us if we go into your room for ten minutes?”   
They both smiled. Flash, flash went the sign above his head. As they crept through the balcony doors and into the hallway, their arms brushed together. They hardly touched at all, but it was startling to Mark. Damien lingered in the doorway to Mark’s bedroom, then said: “Give me a second.” And disappeared into the bathroom. He heard running water, small splashes. He was self-conscious after being out in the cool air. Mark missed him as soon as he shut the door. He thought about opening it - Damien hadn’t locked it. When he wasn’t with him, he thought he just made him up.

Mark sat on the edge of his bed, knees slightly spread around Damien’s. He was still standing in front of him, looking at him. He held out his hand and Mark threaded his fingers in the spaces. His hands looked different, entangled with Damien’s. His hands were completely new to him.  
“Mark?”  
When Mark looked at him, it felt like fear. His eyes were a soft green and full of shadows. His mouth was beautiful. He leant towards him and Mark knew. He knew.  
It hadn’t happened yet, but it was going to. 

Number eight was love.

Mark’s heart stumbled. “I can do that-”  
“No,” Damien said. “Let me.”  
Each buckle got his absolute attention, then he slid his belt off around his waist and placed it thoughtfully on the floor. Mark joined him standing up, very close. They made it into a game, like strip poker, but without the cards or dice. He unzipped his jacket and let it fall to the floor, running his hands through his thick, dark hair. Nothing seemed small with Damien watching, so he took his time with the buttons on his shirt. The last one condensed into a planet under their gaze - milky white and perfectly round. It was astounding that they both knew what to do. Mark wasn’t having to think about it; he wasn’t being dragged along. It wasn’t slick or knowing. It was as if they were discovering the path together. He held his hands above his head like a child as he peeled his jumper off him. His hair, curly and soft, got caught in the static and crackled in the dark. It made him giggle. 

They kissed again. For minutes. Tiny kisses where he bit his top lip gently, where his tongue edges his mouth. The room seemed full of ghosts, of trees, the sky. Their kisses became deeper. They sank into each other. It was like the first time they kissed - urgent, fierce.  
“I want you.” Damien said, breathlessly. And Mark wanted him right back. He wanted to show him his body. He pulled him towards the bed. They were still kissing - throats, necks, mouths. The room seemed full of smoke, with something burning between them.  
Mark lay on the bed and bucked his hips. He needed his jeans off. He wanted to display himself to him, wanted him to see him.   
“Are you sure about this?” He asked.  
“Very.”  
It was simple.  
Damien unbuckled his jeans and Mark undid his belt with one hand, like a magic trick. He circled his lower stomach with his finger, his thumb nudging at his boxers. The feel of his skin next to him, the weight of him against him, his warmth pressing into him - he didn’t know it would make him feel like that. He didn’t understand that when you made love, you actually made love. Stirred things. Affected each other. The breath that escaped him was dazzled. He breathed it in with a gasp. Damien’s hand slid under his hip and Mark met it with his own, their fingers locked. He wasn’t sure whose hand belonged to who. He was Mark; he was Damien.

It was utterly beautiful not to know his edges. The feel of them under their fingers. The taste of them on their tongues. And they always watched each other, checked with each other, like music, like a dance. Eye to eye.

It built, an ache between them, changing and swelling. He wanted him. He wanted him closer. He couldn’t get near enough. He wrapped his legs around his, swept his back with his hands, trying to pull him closer. It was as if his heart sprung up and married his soul, as his whole body imploded. Like a stone falling in a pond, circles and circles of love rippled through him. Mark gathered him and held him close. He was amazed at him. At them. That gift.

He stroked his head, his face; he kissed his nose, his mouth.  
He was alive, blessed to be with Damien on the earth, at that very moment.


	17. Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: BLOOD

Blood spilt from his nose. It was darker and darker every time he saw it. It would be black soon. He stood in front of the hall mirror and watched it pour down his chin and through his fingers until his hands were slippery with it. It dripped onto the floor and spread into the weave of the carpet.  
“Please,” he whispered. “Not now. Not tonight.”  
But it didn’t stop.

He heard Illinois walk in from the balcony and, as he closed the glass door, Mark stepped in his path. “Oh my god-”  
“I’ve got a nosebleed.”  
“It’s pumping out of you,” he looked frightened for a second. He hadn’t seen Mark’s blood like this, hadn’t had to deal with it. It wasn’t an injury, it just simply was. “In here, come on-” He pushed him into the living room. Heavy, dull drops splashed the carpet as he walked. Dark poppies blooming at his feet.   
“Sit down,” he commanded. “Lean back and pinch your nose.” Which was the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do so Mark ignored him. Damien would be there in ten minutes. They were going dancing. Illinois stood watching him for a moment, then rushed out of the room. He came back with a tea towel and handed it to him. He was never this fearful and jittery before. Maybe it was the pregnancy - Mark didn’t dare mention anything though. Not then.  
“Lean back. Press this against your nose.”

Since Mark’s way wasn’t working, he did as he said. Blood leaked down his throat. He swallowed as much as he could, but loads of it went in his mouth and he couldn’t really breathe. He sat forward and spat into the tea towel. A big clot glistened back at him, alien dark. It was definitely not something that was supposed to be outside his body.  
“Give that to me.” Illinois said. Mark handed it over and he looked at it closely before wrapping it up. His hands, like Mark’s, were smeared with blood.  
“What am I going to do, Illinois? He’ll be here soon.”  
“It’ll stop in a minute.” He feigned calmness. Mark frowned.  
“Look at my clothes!”  
He shook his head at him in despair. “You’d better lie down.”

That was also the wrong thing to do, but it wasn’t stopping, so everything was already ruined anyway. Illinois sat on the edge of the sofa. Mark lay back and watched shapes brighten and dissolve. He imagined he was on a sinking ship. A shadow flapped its wings at him.   
Illinois asked, “Does that feel any better?”  
“Much.” Mark didn’t think he believed him because he went out to the kitchen and came with the ice-cube tray. He squatted next to him on the sofa and emptied it onto his lap. Ice cubes shook off his jeans and onto the carpet. He picked one up, wiped the fluff off and handed it to him.   
“Hold this on your nose.”  
“Frozen peas would be better, Illinois.”  
He thought about it for a second, then ran off again, returning with a packet of sweetcorn. “Will this do? There weren’t any peas.” They laughed together, which was something.

Mark reached for his arm and he helped him up. He felt ancient. He swung his legs onto the floor and pinched the top of his nose between two fingers like he was supposed to do. His pulse was pounding against his head.  
“It’s not stopping, is it?” Illinois bit his lip. “I’m gonna call Abe.”  
“He’ll think you can’t cope.”  
There was an odd silence. “Let him.” He got his number up quickly, pressing the phone to his ear. “Come on, come on.” He muttered,under his breath. The room was very pale. All the ornaments on the mantelpiece were bleached as bones.  
“He’s not answering,” Illinois pulled the phone away from his ear. “Why isn’t he answering?”  
“It’s his first night out in weeks, Illinois,” Mark shrugged. “Leave him. We’ll manage.” His face crashed. A fear had gripped his very step on the earth after he had told Mark he was pregnant; there were days where he didn’t know what to do with himself, how to speak or eat properly. He’d learnt what fear was. But Mark needed him now and Abe would be back eventually. They’d be okay.

They were driving back from the hospital when they saw it. Illinois had spotted it first.  
“Look,” he said and Mark lifted his head from his shoulder. “That’s strange.”  
It was a struggle to open his eyes. “What is?”  
“There on the bridge. That wasn’t there before.” 

They had stopped in traffic lights outside the railway station. Even at that early hour in the morning it was busy, with taxis dropping off commuters determined to beat the rush. On the bridge, high above the road, letters had blossomed during the night. Several people were looking. There was a wobbly M, a jagged A and two interlinked curves of the R. At the end, bigger than the other letters, there was a mountainous K.  
“That’s a coincidence.” Illinois joked, because they both knew it wasn’t. Mark’s phone was in his pocket. His fingers furled and unfurled. He would have done that last night. It would have been dark. He climbed the wall, straddled it, then leant right over. Mark’s heart hurt. He got out his phone and texted: “Are you alive?”

The lights changed from amber to green. The car moved under the bridge and along the highstreet. It was half past six. Would he even be awake? What if he lost his balance and plummeted onto the road below?  
“Oh shit,” Illinois laughed. “You’re everywhere!”  
The shops in the high street still had their metal grilles down, blank-eyed and sleeping. His name was scrawled across them all. He was outside the newsagent’s. He was on the expensive shutters of the health food store. He was massive on the furniture shop, King’s Chicken Joint and the Barbecue Café. He threaded the pavement outside the bank and all the way to Mothercare. He had possessed the road and was a glistening circle at the roundabout.  
“It’s a miracle.” He said.  
“It’s Damien.”  
“Oh yeah?” He sounded amazed - he was probably expecting Abe or some long lost love affair, not the bright-eyed, goody-two-shoes a few blocks away.  
Mark’s phone vibrated. “I’m alive. Are you?” He laughed out loud. When he got back, he was going to knock on his door and tell him sorry. Damien was going to smile at him the way he did the day before when he was leaning against the signpost to catch his breath and he saw him watching from the balcony and shouted: “Just can’t keep away, can you?” It made Mark laugh because it was true, but saying it out loud made it not so painful.  
“Damien did this for you?” And, for once, he didn’t sound so condescending at the romance. Mark texted him back: “I’m alive too - coming home now”.

Illinois had asked him once what the best moment of his life so far was and he had told him about the time he and Abe drove to the cliffs and watched the sunrise from the top of the world. They were 17 and they sat on the roof of his car, fingers just touching. Illinois just smiled and shook his head, but really, it was the first time he’d ever known he was happy in such a conscious way. Kissing Damien replaced it. Making love replaced that. And now he’d done that for him. He’d made him famous. He’d put his name on the world. He’d been in hospital all night, his head was stuffed with cotton. He was clutching a paper bag full of antibiotics and painkillers. And yet, it was extraordinary how happy he felt.


	18. Eighteen

“I want Damien to move in.”  
Abe turned from the sink, his hands dripping soapsuds onto the floor. He looked utterly stunned. “What?”  
“I mean it.”  
“Where’s he supposed to sleep?”  
“In my bedroom.”  
“There’s no way I’m agreeing to that, Mark.” He turned back to the sink, clunked bowls and plates about. “Is this on your list? Having a live-in boyfriend?”  
“His name is Damien.”  
He shook his head. “Forget it.” It did sometimes slip his mind that he didn’t actually own the apartment. He didn’t, legally, live anywhere. Abe paid for everything - Abe had a job.  
“Then I’ll move into his house.” He was indignant.  
“You think his sister will want you there?”  
“We’ll bugger off to Canada and live in a croft then. Would you prefer that?”  
Abe’s mouth twitched in anger as he turned back to Mark. “The answer’s no, Mark.” Mark hated the way he pulled authority, as if it was all sorted because he said so. He stomped along the hallway to his room and slammed the door. He thought it was about sex. Couldn’t he see it was deeper than that? And can’t he see how difficult it is to ask for?

Three weeks before, at the end of January, Damien had taken him out in his car, faster than before, further than before - to a place on the outskirts of a city where there was flat, marshy land sloping down to a beach. There were four wind turbines out at sea, their ghostly blades spinning. He had skimmed stones at the waves and Mark had sat on the shingle and told him how his list was sprawling away from him.  
“There are so many things I want,” he said out to sea. “Ten isn’t enough anymore.”  
“Tell me.” Damien said.   
It had been easy, at first, he went on and on. Spring. Daffodils and tulips. Swimming in a pool under a calm blue evening sky. A long train journey, a peacock, a kite. Another summer. But he couldn’t tell him the thing he wanted most. That night Damien had gone home. Every night he did.

The next day he had turned up with tickets to the zoo; they had gone on the train. They had seen wolves and antelopes. A peacock opened its tail for him, emerald and aquamarine. They had had lunch in a café and Damien had bought him a fruit platter with black grapes and vivid slices of mango.

A few days later he had taken him to a heated outdoor pool. After swimming, they had sat on the edge, wrapped in towels, and had dangled their feet in the water. They drank hot chocolate and laughed. 

One morning he had delivered a bowl of crocuses to his room.   
“Spring.” He had said. He had taken him to their hill in his car. He’d bought a pocket kite from the newsagent’s and they flew it together.

Day after day it was as if someone had taken his life apart and polished every bit of it really carefully before putting it all back together.   
But they never shared a single night.

Then, on Valentine’s Day, he’d had another nosebleed. The blood was thicker than last time, as dark as the ocean at night.   
“What does that mean?” Mark had asked the consultant.  
“You’ve moved nearer the line.” He had said.  
It was getting harder to breathe. The shadows beneath his eyes had deepened.

The night before last, he had woken up at two in the morning. His chest was hurting, a dull throbbing, like a toothache. He’d taken paracetamol before going to bed, but he needed something more. Codeine. On the way to the bathroom he had passed Abe’s bedroom door and crept over to push it slightly ajar. The guy he had met about a month before was there - his hair spilling across the pillow, his arm flung protectively across him. That was three times he had stayed over in the last two weeks. Mark didn’t like him; he was loud and annoying and so bright about the world. Maybe that’s what Abe needed. He had stood on the landing watching them sleep, knowing for a fact that he couldn’t be alone in the dark anymore.

Mark heard unfamiliar footsteps walk along the hallway, up to his bedroom door, pause, then knock gently. He was standing by the window watching the dusk. The sky was full of something, the clouds low down and expectant.  
“What?”  
Turned out, it was Abe’s friend. He looked even more annoying than usual in the daylight, and Mark had hardly seen him before. The friend cautiously pushed the door open and shut it behind him delicately, his back pressed against the wood. Mark raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t for the life of him remember his name. The friend gave him a weak smile. “Abe said you wanted Damien to move in.” He said. His voice pissed Mark off. He wrote his name in condensation on the window. His finger marks smeared across the glass made him feel young. “He was really torn about it because he wants to help you but..” he trailed off. Mark could see the friend’s reflection in the glass; he looked like a clown.   
“It’s all the legal stuff - I know.” His words were fierce and harsh. The friend looked like he was going to say more but didn’t. Mark wanted him out of his room, even though he barely touched the carpet by the door. He looked thoughtful for a moment.  
“I’ll talk to him,” he said. “I’ll take him out for a beer.” There was a slight joy to his voice when he said that. Mark wanted to stamp on it. “You’ll be alright, right?”  
He rolled his eyes, then thought for a moment and smirked. “I’ll get Damien to come over.”

Mark cut four giant slices of bread on the chopping board and then under the grill. He got lettuce from the vegetable rack and, because Damien stood with his back against the sink watching him, gave him a little flourish with it. Damien laughed. He peeled a few leaves off and placed them on the grill next to the toast. He got the grater from the cupboard, the cheese from the fridge, and grated a pile of cheese onto the chopping board while the toast cooked. He knew there was a gap between the bottom of his t-shirt and the waistband of his trousers. He knew there was a particular curve where his spine met his ass, and that, when he leant on one hip, that curve pushed itself towards Damien. After he grated the cheese, he licked each finger in turn, very deliberately, and it did just what he knew it would. Damien walked over and kissed the back of his neck.  
“Want to know what I’m thinking?” He whispered.  
“Tell me.” Although Mark already knew.  
“I want you.” He turned him around and kissed his mouth. “A lot.” He spoke as if he’d been grabbed by a force he didn’t understand. Mark loved it. He pressed himself against him.   
“Want to know what I want?” Mark didn’t break eye contact, wanting to see further into him than just his eyes. Damien smiled, thinking he knew what he was going to say. Mark didn’t want him to stop smiling. “You.” The truth. And not the truth. Mark turned off the gas and they went upstairs. The toast had turned to charcoal. The smell of burning made him sad.

In Damien’s arms he forgot. But afterwards, as they lay quietly together, he remembered.  
“I have bad dreams.” He said.  
Damien stroked his hip, the top of his thigh. His hand was warm and firm. “Tell me.”  
“I go somewhere in them.” He walked barefoot over fields to a place at the edge of that world. He climbed stiles and trekked through tall grass. Every night he went further. Last night he went into a wood - gloomy and not very big. On the other side was a river. Mist hovered above the surface. There were no fish and, as he waded out, mud oozed between his toes.

Damien brushed Mark’s cheek with one finger. Then he pulled him close and kissed him. On his cheek. On his chin. On his other cheek. Then on his mouth. Very gently. “I’d come with you if I could.”  
“It’s very dark.”  
He nodded. “I’m very brave.” And he was, Mark knew he was: how many people would be there with him in the first place?  
“Dames, there’s something I need to ask you.” Damien waited. His head was next to Mark’s on the pillow, his eyes calm. It was difficult. He couldn’t find the words. The books on the shelf above them seemed to sigh and shuffle. Damien sat up and handed him a pen.   
“Write it on the wall.” Mark looked up at all the things he’d written there over the months. Scrawls of desire. There was so much he could add. A joint bank account, singing in the bath with him, listening to him mumble in his sleep for years and years. “Go on,” he said. “I have to go soon.” And it was those words, with an edge of the outside world in them, of things to do and places to be, that allowed him to write.  
‘I want you to move in with me. I want the nights.’ He wrote it quickly in really bad handwriting, so maybe Damien wouldn’t be able to read it. Then he hid under the duvet. There was a second’s pause.  
“I can’t, Mark.” Mark struggled out of the duvet. He couldn’t see his face, just a glimpse of light reflected in his eyes. Stars shining there perhaps. Or the moon.  
“Because you don’t want to?”  
“Because I can’t leave my sister by herself.” Mark hated his sister. He’d never met her, but she was always there. It was always her.  
“Can’t you come back when she’s asleep?”  
“No.”  
“Have you even asked her?” Damien got out of bed without touching him and put on his clothes. Mark wished it was possible to poison him too; he’d gently leak it onto his flesh, he could reach from where he was, then Damien would be his forever. His fingers would reach under his skin. “I’ll haunt you,” his voice suddenly broke through the dark. “But from the inside. Every time you cough you’ll think of me.”  
“Stop messing with my head.” He said. And then he left.

Mark grabbed his clothes and followed him. He got his jacket from the kitchen. He heard him walk through the living room and pause by the balcony. He was still standing by the glass doors when Mark caught him up. The doors were slightly ajar. Beyond him, out in the cool air, great flakes of snow were swirling down. It must have started when they were upstairs. The streets were covered, the cars too. The sky was full of it. The world seemed silent and smaller.  
“You wanted snow.” He opened the door more, reaching out his hand and catching one. He showed it to Mark. It was a proper one, like he used to cut out of doilies meticulously and stick on the windows in elementary school. They watched it melt in his palm. 

Mark got his coat. Damien found his boots and helped him out onto the tiles. His breath was frost. It was snowing so much, their footprints were wiped out as soon as they made them. The further out they got the deeper it became; it creaked at they stood on it. They stood on the newness of it together. They trampled out his name, trying to wear it out, to reach the tiles beneath. But fresh snow covered every mark they made.  
“Watch.” Damien said. He lay flat on his back and moved his arms and legs. He jumped at how cold it was on his neck, his head. He got up again, stamping the snow off his trousers. “For you,” he sighed, breathlessly. “A snow angel.” It was the first time he had looked at him since Mark had written on the wall. His eyes were sad.

They stayed, watching the snowfall for a while. Then Damien finally spoke again.  
“You’re shivering,” he said. “You should go in.”  
“Not without you.” Damien checked his phone for the time. “What do you call a snowman in the desert?”  
“I need to go Mark.”  
“A puddle.”  
“Seriously.”  
Mark pouted. “You can’t go now, there’s a snowstorm. I’ll never find my way back home.” He undid his coat and let it fall open so his shoulders were exposed. Earlier Damien had spent minutes kissing that particular bit of shoulder. He blinked at him. Snow fell onto his eyelashes.   
“What do you want from me, Mark?”  
“Night time.”  
“What do you really want?” Mark knew he’d understand.  
“I want you to be with me in the dark. To hold me. To keep loving me. To help me when I get scared. To come right to the edge and see what’s there.”  
Damien looked deeply at him. “What if I get it wrong?”  
“It’s impossible to get wrong.”  
“I might let you down.”  
“You won’t.” There was a silence.  
“I might get freaked out.”  
Mark almost smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I just want you to be there.” Damien gazed at him across the winter balcony. His eyes looked very green. In them, he saw his future stretching out before him. He didn’t know what he saw in his. But he was brave; Mark always knew that about him. He took his hand and led him inside.

In his room, Mark felt heavier, like the bed had glued itself to him and was pulling him down. Damien took ages getting undressed, then stood there shivering in his boxers.  
“Shall I get in then?” He asked.  
“Only if you want to.” Damien rolled his eyes, as if there was no winning with him. It was so difficult to get what he wanted; he worried that people only gave him things because otherwise they would feel guilty. He wanted Damien to want to be there. How would he ever tell the difference? “Shouldn’t we tell your sister?” He asked as he climbed in beside him.  
He shook his head. “Stop it, Mark.”

They wrapped themselves together, but the shiver of the snow was still with them; their hands and feet were ice. They cycled their legs to keep warm. He stroked him and scooped him into his arms again.   
“Do you want me?” Mark said.  
He smiled. “I always want you. But it’s late, you should go to sleep.” The snow outside made the world brighter. Light filtered through the window. Mark fell asleep watching the glimmer and sheen of it on Damien’s skin. 

When he woke up, it was still night and Damien was still asleep. His hair was dark on the pillow, his arm slung across him as if he could hold him there. He sighed, stopped breathing, stirred, breathed again. He was in the middle bit of sleep, Mark mused, a part of that world, but also part of another. That was strangely comforting to him. 

His being there didn’t stop his chest from hurting though. Mark left him in the duvet, wrapped himself up in the blanket and stumbled to the bathroom for codeine. When he came out, Abe was standing in the hallway in his boxers and a t-shirt. Mark had forgotten he’d existed.  
“You must be getting old,” Mark told him. “Old people get up in the night.”  
He pulled at the hem of his shirt. “I know Damien’s in there with you.”  
“And is your friend in there with you?” That seemed an important question, but Abe chose to ignore it.   
“You did this without my permission.” He looked sad. Mark’s attention drifted to the carpet and hoped Abe would get the conversation over with quickly. His chest throbbed.He shuffled his feet.  
“I’m not trying to spoil your fun, Mark,” he chewed at his lip. “But it’s my job to look after you and I don’t want you hurt.”  
“Bit late for that.” He meant as a joke, but Abe wasn’t smiling.   
“You can’t rely on Damien for everything,” he looked like he’d been smoking. “He might let you down.”  
“He won’t.”  
“And if he does?”  
“Then I still have you.” Mark felt weird hugging him in the hallway in the dark. They held each other tighter than he could ever remember. Eventually, Abe eased his grip and looked at him very seriously.  
“I’ll always be here for you, Mark,” he always found talking to him about shit like that hard. “Whatever your stupid list makes you do, whatever you have left on it. You need to know that.”  
“There’s hardly anything left.” Number nine was Damien moving in. Deeper than sex. It was about facing death, but not alone. His bed, no longer frightening, but a place where Damien lay warm and waiting for him.  
Abe kissed the top of his head, very gently. “Alright.”


	19. Nineteen

Spring was a powerful spell. The blue, the clouds high and fluffy, the air warmer than it had been for weeks.  
“The light was different this morning,” Mark told Illinois, sitting with his back against the doorframe of the balcony. “It woke me up.” Illinois shifted his weight to the other leg and stretched it out.  
“Lucky you,” he smirked. “Leg cramp woke me up.”

They were sitting, watching the cherry blossoms fall neatly down onto the streets below them. Illinois had left his jacket on, sleeves pulled down to his palms, but Mark wasn’t cold at all. It was a mellow day in March that felt as if the earth was tipping forwards. Daisies sprinkled the park beneath them. Clusters of tulips sprouted at the edges of fences. It even smelt different - moist and secretive.   
“You alright?” Illinois asked. “You look different.”  
“I’m concentrating.”  
“On what?”  
“Signs.”  
Illinois laughed slightly and picked up the holiday brochure from his lap. He flicked through the pages. “I’ll torture myself with this then. Tell me when you’re done.” He’d never be done. The rip in the clouds where light fell through. The brazen bird flying in a straight line right across the sky. There were signs everywhere, keeping him safe. Abe had got into it too, although in a more practical way; he put garlic above the doors and at the four corners of Mark’s bed. He had made keep out signs for the doors facing the outside world. The night before, while they were watching TV, he’d tied their legs together with a thin piece of rope. It was soft, childlike.   
He’d smiled at him and said: “No one will take you if you’re tied to me.” They’d laughed.  
“They might take you as well.” Abe had shrugged, as if that didn’t matter to him.  
“They won’t get you in Sicily either; they won’t know where you are.”

They’d fly the day after. A whole week in the sun. He’d teased Illinois with the brochure, run his finger over the volcanic beach with black sand, the sea edged by mountains, the cafés and piazzas. In some photos, Mount Etna squatted massively in the background, remote and fiery.  
“The volcano’s active,” he told him, though Illinois probably knew this already. “It sparks at night and, when it rains, everything gets covered in ash.”  
“It’s not going to rain though, is it? It must be about thirty degrees.” He smirked, then sighed. “I can’t believe Abe bought a ticket for Damien too.”  
“Neither can I.”

Illinois spoke again, but Mark couldn’t really hear him. His body began to waver at the edges.  
“Are you okay?” Illinois frowned. “You’ve got a weird look on your face again.” Mark sat forward and massaged his scalp. He focused on the pain behind his eyes and tried to make it go away. “Should I get Abe?”  
“No.”  
“A glass of water?”  
“No. Stay there. I’ll be back in a minute.”

As he dragged his feet back inside, he couldn’t see Damien, but could hear him in the kitchen, probably washing up for Abe. He wanted to thank him, pay him back somehow, but both of them knew he never really could. He didn’t need to. Mark slipped through the doorway, focusing purely on Damien. He grinned when he saw him watching, turned the tap off and walked over.  
“Hey Marky!” Mark leant into him and waited to feel better. He was warm. His skin was salty and smelt of baked sunlight.  
“I love you.” Silence. Startling. Did he mean to say that?  
Damien smiled his tilted smile. “I love you too, Mark.” Mark put his hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”  
“I do mean it.” His breath made his finger humid. He kissed his palm. Mark buried those things in his heart - the feel of him under his fingers, the taste of him on his mouth. He’d need them, like talismans, to survive an impossible journey. He brushed his cheek with one finger, from his temple to his chin and then across his lips. “Are you okay?” Mark nodded. Damien looked down at him, gently puzzled. “You seem quiet. Do you want me to come and find you after a bit? We could go out in the car if you’d like, say goodbye to the hill for a week.” Mark nodded again. Yes. He kissed him goodbye. He tasted of butter.

“I think I can feel him sometimes,” Mark nodded slowly. He knew what he meant, sometimes he could feel him too. He wanted to feel him. The baby was just over six months. He could picture him. “I think he’s moving.” Then something seemed to startle him. “Did you feel that?” He looked pleased, a scared but joyful look in his eye. “You’re the first person to ever feel that. You did feel it, didn’t you?”  
“I felt it.” And he did. He really, truly did.  
“Imagine him,” Illinois said, wistfully. “Really imagine him.” Mark often did. He’d drawn him on the wall above his bed. It wasn’t a great drawing, but all the measurements were accurate - femur, abdomen, head circumference. Number ten on his list. Mark Indiana James.

He held his boyfriend’s hand very tight. He didn’t know when he got there. He rested his head on his shoulder, feeling as if he was waiting for something. There were sounds - the vague chink of dishes from the kitchen maybe, the rustle of leaves, the roar of a faraway engine. The sun had turned to liquid, melting coldly into the horizon.   
“You feel very hot.” Damien pressed his hand against his forehead, brushed his cheek, felt the back of his neck. The planet spun, the wind sifted the trees. Mark wasn’t afraid. He kept breathing, just kept doing it. It was easy - in and out. It was strange how the ground came up to meet him, but it felt better to be low. He thought about his name while he lay there. Mark Fischbach. Three syllables. Every seven years your bodies changed, every cell. Every seven years you disappeared.  
“Fuck! He’s burning up!” Abe’s face glimmered right above him. “Call an ambulance!” His voice came from far away. Mark wanted to smile, to thank him for being there, but for some reason he couldn’t seem to get the words together.  
“Don’t close your eyes, Mark.”  
“Can you hear me?”  
“Don’t close your eyes!”  
When he nodded, the sky whirled with sickening speed, like falling from a building.


	20. Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: HOSPITALS

Death strapped him to the hospital bed, clawed its way onto his chest and sat there. He didn’t know it would hurt that much. He didn’t know that everything good that had ever happened in his life would be emptied out by it.

it was happening and it was really really true and however much they all promised to remember him it didn’t even matter if they did or not because he wouldn’t even know about it because he’d be gone

A dark hole opened up in the corner of the room and filled with mist-like material rippling through trees.

He heard himself groaning from a distance. He didn’t want to listen. He caught the weight of their glances. Nurse to doctor, doctor to Abe. Their hushed voices. Panic spilt from Abe’s throat.

Not yet. Not yet.

He kept thinking about blossom. White blossom from a spinning blue sky. How small humans were, how vulnerable compared to rocks, stars.

Illinois came. Mark remembered him. He wanted to tell him not to be scared. He wanted him to talk in his normal voice and tell him something witty and charming. But he stood next to Abe, quiet and small, and whispered: “What’s wrong with him?”  
“He has an infection.”  
“Will he die?”  
“They’ve given him antibiotics.”  
“So he’ll get better?”  
Silence.

That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Not sudden, like being hit by a car. Not the strange heat, the feeling of massive bruising inside. He was supposed to get weaker and weaker, blood get darker and darker, until he didn’t care anymore.   
But he still cared. When was he going to stop caring?

He tried to think of simple things - boiling potatoes, milk. But scary things tried to come into his mind instead - empty trees, plates of dust. The bleached angle of a jaw bone.

He wanted to tell Abe how frightened he was, but speaking was like climbing up from a vat of oil. His words came from somewhere dark and slippery.  
“Don’t let me fall”  
“I’ve got you”  
“I’m falling”  
“I’m here. I’ve got you”  
But his eyes were scared and his face was grey, like he was a hundred years old.


	21. Twenty-one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: HOSPITALS

He woke up to flowers. Vases of tulips, carnations like a wedding, gypsophila frothing over the bedside cabinet. He woke up to Abe, still holding his hand. All the things in the room were wonderful - the jug, the chair. The sky was very blue beyond the window.  
“Are you thirsty?” Abe said. “Do you want a drink?”  
Mark wanted apple juice. Lots of it. He plumped a pillow under his head and held the glass for him. Their eyes locked onto each other. He sipped, swallowed. Abe gave him time to breathe, tipped the glass again. When he’d had enough, he wiped his mouth with a tissue.  
“Like a baby.” Mark told him. Abe nodded. Silent tears filled his eyes. 

Mark slept. Woke up again. And that time he was starving.  
“Any chance of ice cream?”   
Abe put his book down with a grin. “Wait there.” He wasn’t gone long, came back with a small pot of raspberry ice cream. He stuck the small, wooden spoon in the top and handed it to him and Mark managed to hold it by himself. It was great. His body was repairing itself. He didn’t know it could still do that. He knew he wouldn’t die with an ice cream in his hand.   
“I think I might want another one after this.” Abe told him he could have fifty ice creams if that was what he wanted. He must have forgotten he wasn’t allowed sugar or dairy.  
“I’ve got something for you,” he fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a small pebble. It was very smooth and painted as if an old tapestry with deep reds and golds. “Illinois made it. He sends you his love.”

When Abe had gone, he found himself watching the skin on his hand. It was dark, blotchy. Grey. His best friend was having a baby in eight weeks. Eight weeks.

Mark knew he looked awful; he saw the shock of it in Damien’s eyes.  
“Not quite how you remember me, huh?”   
Damien leant down and kissed his cheek. “You’re gorgeous.” But that was what Mark thought he’d always been afraid of: having to be interesting when he was ugly and useless. 

He’d brought tulips from the park. Mark stuffed them in the water jug as Damien looked at his get-well cards. They spoke about nothing for a while. He looked out the window, made a joke about the view across the car park.  
“Dames I want you to be real.” Damien frowned, as if he didn’t understand. “Don’t pretend to care. I don’t need you as an anaesthetic.”  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“I don’t want anyone being fake.”  
“I’m not being.” He looked hurt.  
“I don’t blame you. You didn’t know I’d look like this. Get this bad.” Damien thought about that for a moment, then kicked off his shoes. “What are you doing?”  
“Being real.”

He pulled back the blanket and climbed into the bed next to him. He scooped him up and wrapped him in his arms. “I love you.” He whispered angrily into his neck. “It hurts more than anything ever has, but I do. So don’t you dare tell me I don’t. Don’t ever say that again.” Mark lay the flat of his palm against his face and Damien pushed into it. It crossed his mind that he was lonely.   
“I’m sorry.”  
“You should be.” He wouldn’t look at him. Mark thought he was trying not to cry.

He stayed all afternoon. They watched TV, then Damien read the paper Abe had left behind and Mark slept again. He dreamt of him, even though he was right next to him. They walked together through snow, but they were hot and wearing swimming trunks. There were empty lanes and frosty trees and a road that curved and never ended.

When he woke up, he was hungry again, so he sent Damien off for another raspberry ice cream. He missed him as soon as he left. It was like the whole hospital emptied out. How could that be? He clawed his hands together under the blanket until Damien climbed back into bed beside him. He opened the ice cream and passed it over. Mark put it on the bedside table.  
“Touch me.”  
He looked confused. “Your ice cream will melt.”  
“Please.”  
“I’m right here; I am touching you.”  
Mark moved his hand to his hip. “Like this.”  
“No, Mark,” he pleaded. “I might hurt you.”  
“You won’t.” He was firm.  
“What about the nurse?”  
“We’ll throw the bed-pan at her if she comes in.”  
Damien very gently ran his hand around his pelvis. “Like this?” He touched him as if he were precious, as if he was stunned, as if his body amazed him, even then, when it was failing. When Damien’s skin touched Mark’s, skin to skin, they both shivered.  
“I want to make love.”  
His hand stalled. “When?”  
“When I get back home. One more time before I die. I want you to promise.” The look in Damien’s eyes frightened him. He’d never seen it before. So deep and real, it was as if he’d seen things in the world that others could only imagine.  
“I promise.”


	22. Twenty-two

“So were you going to tell me?”   
Damien regarded him grimly from his perch on the edge of the chair. They were going to move back to Paris, after he’d gone, it was what Mark had wanted after all, but neither of them had expected to get a house offer as early as that. “It was difficult.”  
“That’s a no then.” Mark didn’t think it was difficult, all it was was the day he got out of hospital. The day he got home and Damien had a promise to keep.  
He shrugged. “It just felt so unfair, like how come I get to have a life?”  
Mark sat forward in the bed. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for yourself because you get to stay behind!”  
Damien flinched. “I’m not-”  
“Because,” Mark tapped his shoulders with the tips of his fingers. “If you want to die too, then here’s the plan. We go out in the car. You take a hairpin bend really fast just as a juggernaut’s coming the other way, and we’ll die together - loads of blood, joint funeral, our bones entwined for eternity. How about that?” Damien looked horrified; it made Mark laugh. He grinned back at him, relieved. It was like breaking through fog, as if the sun came out in the room. “Let’s just forget about it, Dames. It was bad timing, that’s all.”  
“You threw everything out the window!” Mark paused for a moment: that was true. Abe had been distraught. He said he wanted some part of Mark left behind. Well now he had photos. The walls. What was he going to do with all his stuff anyway?  
“Not because of you.”  
Damien leant his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. “No.”

“Bet you forget me by the end of the first month in Paris.” He put a lot of emphasis on the city. He wanted it.  
“Bet I won’t.” Damien wasn’t even humouring him now.  
“It’s practically the law-”  
“Stop it!” his eyes looked watery. “Do I have to do something outrageous to make you believe me?”  
“Yes.”  
He grinned. “What do you suggest?”  
“Keep your promise.”


	23. Twenty-three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from here onwards the tw would be death so just! take care of yourselves ok!

“Tell me how it’ll be,” he and Abe were sitting on his bed, the window wide open for the sun to wash through. “You told me you’d find out.”  
Abe nodded, as if he was expecting that question. He had a strange look on his face - professional, distant. He’d begun to retreat. What else could he do? He dealt with deaths and grieving people on a daily basis: it was his job to administer to the dying, but if he got too close, he would fall into the abyss. Mark wanted to touch him. To hold him. “You won’t eat much from now on. You’ll probably want to sleep a lot. You might not want to talk, but you may feel energized enough for good ten-minute chats between sleep. You may even want to go to the park or the balcony if it’s warm enough. I’ll carry you.” His eyes were focused on the wall in front of them. “But mostly you’ll sleep. In a few days, you’ll begin to drift in and out of consciousness, and at this stage you might not be able to respond, but you’ll know people are with you..” he hesitated, swallowing. “You’ll be able to hear them talking to you. Eventually you’ll just drift away, Mark.”  
Mark was silent for a moment. “Will it hurt?”  
“I think your pain will always be manageable.”

When he fell asleep, he had a dream where he walked into the living room and everyone was sitting there: Abe, Damien, Illinois. Abe was making a sound he’d never heard before.  
“Why are you crying?” He asked. “What happened?” Damien and Illinois were next to each other on the sofa. All three of them were dressed in suits. 

And then it hit him. He was dead.

“I’m here, I’m right here!” Mark yelled, but they didn’t hear him. He had seen a film once about the dead - how they never really went away, but lived silently among everyone. He wanted to tell them that. He tried to knock a pencil off the table, but his hand moved right through it. And through the sofa. He walked through the wall and back again. He dabbled his fingers in Abe’s head and he shifted in his chair, perhaps wondering at the thrill of the cold.

Then he woke up.

Abe was sitting on a chair beside the bed, gazing at his face. He reached for his hand. “How are you feeling?”  
Mark thought about that, scanning his body for signs. “I’m not in pain.”  
“That’s good.”  
“I’m a bit tired.”  
He nodded. “Are you hungry?” Mark wanted to be. For Abe. He wanted to ask for rice and prawns and treacle pudding, but he’d be lying. He couldn’t say anything. “Is there anything I can get you? Anything you want?” Meet the baby. Win an award. Travel the world.  
“A cup of tea?”  
Abe looked pleased. “Anything else? A biscuit?”  
“A pen and paper.” Abe helped him sit up. He plumped the pillows behind him, turned on the bedside light and passed him a notepad and pen from the shelf. Then he went downstairs to put the kettle on.  
Number eleven. A cup of tea. Number twelve.. 

‘INSTRUCTIONS FOR ABE:

I don’t want to go into a fridge at an undertaker’s. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can you sit with me in case I get lonely? I promise not to scare you.

I want to wear the clothes I packed for Sicily. They’re still in the suitcase. I also want to wear the bracelet my Dames gave me.  
DON’T put makeup on me. It looks stupid on dead people.

I want a biodegradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not far from where we live, and they’ll help you with all the arrangements. I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I’d like an oak, but I don’t mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on it. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave.

I want the service to be simple. Tell Illinois to bring Mark (if he’s born by then). Invite Celine and her father.

I don’t want anyone who doesn’t know me saying anything about me. I want the people I love to get up and speak about me and even if you cry.. It’ll be okay. I want you to be honest. Say I was a monster if you’d like, say how I made you run around after me. If you can think of anything good, say that too! Write it down first, though, because apparently people often forget what they mean to say at funerals. 

Don’t - UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - read that poem by Auden. It’s been done to death (ha ha) and it’s too sad. Get Dames to read Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare. 

The music:   
Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac  
Cecilia by Simon & Garfunkel   
Illinois helped me choose them; he’s got them on his phone if you need somewhere to play them from.

Afterwards, go to the restaurant for lunch (you know where I mean), you can bring Will if you want. I have $260 in my bank account still and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it, lunch is on me.

And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam on the mirror when you’re having a shower, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you’re in the park. I might slip into a dream. Visit my grave when you can, but don’t kick yourself if you can’t, or if you move house and it’s suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer. You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I’d like that.

And Abe.. don’t push everyone away. I’m still watching you, I’m still with you. I’ll know.

Okay, that’s it.   
I love you. Mark xxxx'


	24. Twenty-four

Damien climbed into bed. He pulled the duvet right up under his chin, as if he was cold or as if he was afraid that the ceiling would fall on his head. 

He said, “Tomorrow Abe and I are going to bring a camp bed and put it on the floor down there for me.”  
Mark frowned. “Aren’t you going to sleep with me anymore?”  
“You might not want it, Mark.” He looked at him sadly. “You might not want to be held.”  
“What if I do?” He couldn’t just leave him.  
“Well, then I’ll hold you.” But he was terrified. Mark could see it in his eyes.  
“It’s alright, I let you off.” He smiled weakly. Damien didn’t. “No, really, I free you.”  
“I don’t want to be freed.” He leant across and kissed him. “Wake me up if you need me.”

Damien fell asleep quickly. Mark lay awake and listened to lights being switched off across the town. Whispered goodnights. The drowsy creak of bedsprings. 

He found Damien’s hand and held it tightly.

He was glad that night porters and nurses and long-distance lorry drivers existed. It confronted him to know that in other countries with different time zones, people were washing clothes in rivers and children were filing into schools. Somewhere in the world right at that moment, a boy was listening to the merry chink of a goat’s bell as he walked up a mountain. Mark was very glad about that.


	25. Twenty-five

Illinois was sewing; Mark didn’t know he could. A lemon-coloured baby suit was draped across his knees. He threaded the needle, one eye shut, pulled the thread through and rolled a knot between licked fingers. Who taught him that? For minutes, Mark watched him and he sewed as if that was how it had always been. He held his neck at a tender angle, biting his bottom lip in concentration.

“Live,” Mark told him. “You will live, won’t you?”  
Illinois looked up suddenly, sucking bright blood from his finger. “Fuck,” he laughed. “I didn’t know you were awake!”  
‘INSTRUCTIONS FOR ILLINOIS:

Don’t tell your son the planet is rotting. Show him lovely things. Be a giant for him, even though your parents couldn’t do it for you.

Don’t die young. Don’t get meningitis, or AIDS or anything else ever. Be healthy. Don’t fight in any war or join a cult or get religion or lose your heart to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Be as bad as you like.

You’ll be great. I know you.

And I love you.  
Mark xxxx’

“When the baby’s here, do you think you’ll miss the life you had before?” He had thought about this a lot.  
Illinois looked at him very solemnly. “You should get dressed. It’s not good for you to sit around in your pyjamas all day.” He smirked. 

Mark leant back on his pillows and looked at the corners of his room. When he was a kid, he always wanted to live on the ceiling - it looked so clean and uncluttered, like the top of a cake. Now it just reminded him of bedsheets. 

“I feel like I’ve let you down,” Mark shrugged. “I won’t be able to babysit or anything.”  
“It’s really nice outside,” Illinois said. “Do you want me to carry you out?”

Birds jousted on the lawn. Ragged clouds fringed a blue sky. The sun lounger was warm, as if it had been absorbing sunlight for hours. Illinois was reading the paper. Damien was stroking Mark’s stomach through his t-shirt.  
“Listen to this,” Illinois announced. “This won the funniest joke of the year competition!”

Number fourteen. A joke.

Mark laughed a lot. He was a laughing skeleton. To hear them - Damien, Illinois and Mark - was like being offered a window to climb through. Anything could happen next, Mark thought.

Illinois pushed his baby into Mark’s arms. “His name is Mark.” He was fat and sticky and drooling milk. He smelt good. He waves his arms at him, snatching at air. His little fingers with their half-moon nails poked at his nose.   
“Hello Mark.” He told him how big and clever he was. He said all the silly things he’d imagined babies liked to hear. And he looked at him with fathomless eyes and gave a big yawn. He could see right inside his pink mouth.  
“He likes you,” Illinois said. “He knows who you are.”  
Mark put the baby at his shoulder and swam his hands in circles over his back. He listened to his heart. He sounded careful, determined. He was ferociously warm.

Under the apple tree, shadows danced. Sunlight sifted through the branches. A lawnmower droned far away. Illinois was still reading the paper, but slapped it shut when he realised Mark was awake.   
“You’ve been asleep for ages.” He told him.  
“I dreamt Mark was born.”  
“Was he gorgeous?”  
“Of course.”  
Damien looked up and smiled at him. “Hey,” he said.


	26. Twenty-six

The light began to come back. The absolute dark faded at the edges. His mouth was dry.  
“Hey.” Damien said, then he opened the curtains and stood at the window looking out. Beyond him, the dull pink clouds of morning.  
“You’re going to be here for years without me.” Mark told him, but he didn’t know if his soft voice reached him.  
“Shall I make us some breakfast?”

Like a butler, he brought him things. A lemon ice lolly. A hot water bottle. Slices of orange cut onto a plate. Another blanket. He put cinnamon sticks to boil on the oven in the kitchen because Mark wanted to smell Christmas.

How did it happen so quickly? How did it really come true?

he wanted him to get into bed and climb on top of him with his warmth and wrap him in his arms and make it stop

a mad psycho told everyone to get into a field and said he was going to pick one of them just one out of all of them to die and everyone’s looking around thinking it’s so unlikely to be them because there’s thousands of them so statistically it’d be completely unlikely and the psycho walked up and down looking at everyone and when he got near him he hesitated and he smiled and then he pointed right at him and said that he was the one to die and the shock that it was him and yet of course it was him why wouldn’t it be he knew it all along

He reached for Abe’s hand. His fingers looked raw as if they’d been through a grater.  
“What have you done?”  
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Didn’t even notice.”

Mark loved him. He loved him. He sent that message through his fingers and into Abe’s, up his arm and into his heart. He wanted him to hear it. He loved him. And he was sorry to leave him.

He woke up hours later. How did that happen?

Abe was there again, sitting next to him on the bed. The curtains were open and somehow darkness was back.  
“Are you scared?” Abe said this very softly, as if it was something he was thinking and didn’t mean to say.  
“I’m scared of falling asleep.”  
“That you won’t wake up?” Mark nodded once. Abe knew this, but he was somehow twenty-one and five all at once. His eyes glistened in the moonlight. “But you know it won’t be tonight, right? I mean.. you’ll be able to tell, won’t you?”  
“It won’t be tonight.” He rested his head on his shoulder.  
“I really, really hate this.”


	27. Twenty-seven

The bell he was given was loud in the dark, but he didn’t care. Damien came in, bleary eyed, in his boxers and t-shirt.  
“You left me.”  
“I just this second went down to make a cup of tea.” Mark didn’t believe him. And he didn’t care about his cup of tea. He could drink tepid water from his jug if he was desperate.  
“Hold my hand. Don’t let go.”  
Everytime he closed his eyes, he fell. Endlessly falling.


	28. Twenty-eight

All qualities were the same - the light through the curtains, the faraway hum of traffic, the boiler rush of water. It could be groundhog day, except his body was more tired, his skin more grey. He was less than yesterday.

And

Damien was on the camp bed. Mark tried to sit up, but he couldn’t quite muster the energy. “Why did you sleep down there?”  
He touched his hand. “You were in pain in the night.” He opened the curtains just like he did the day before. He stood at the window looking out. Beyond him, the sky was pale and watery.

they’d made love twenty-seven times and they’d shared a bed for sixty-two nights and that was a lot of love

“Breakfast?” He said.

Mark didn’t want to be dead.

He hadn’t been loved that way for long enough.


	29. Twenty-nine

Illinois peered down at him. “Hey,” he said. “How are you?” Mark blinked at him. He sat in the chair and studied him. “You can’t actually talk anymore, can you?”  
Mark tried to tell him yes, of course he could. Was he stupid? But Illinois just sighed, got up and went over to the window. “I don’t think I’m ever going to understand love.”

But Mark thought he already did. Better than most people.

“Hey Abe.” Illinois said.  
“Hey.”  
“I’ve come to say goodbye. I mean,” he paused. “I know I did already, but I thought I’d say it again.”  
“Why?” He said. “Where are you going?” It was automatic. It was awkward for a while.

He liked the weight of Abe’s hand in his own.

“If I could swap places with you, I would.” He said. “I just wish I could save you from this.”  
Perhaps he thought Mark couldn’t hear him.

He gave him a sip of iced water. He gently placed a cold flannel on his head.

Then he said.  
“I love you.”

Like three drops of blood falling onto snow.


	30. Thirty

Damien got onto his camp bed. It creaked. Then it stopped.   
He remembered him kissing his lips. It wasn’t long before. They were in that same room, both in Mark’s bed, and he held his Damien in the crook of his neck and he nestled against him. 

He promised he’d come to the edge. Mark had made him promise. But he didn’t know he’d lie next to him like a good boy scout. He didn’t know it would hurt to be touched, that he’d be too scared to hold his hand.

‘INSTRUCTIONS FOR DAMIEN:

Look after no one except yourself. Go to Paris and make lots of friends and get drunk. Forget your door keys. Laugh. Eat pot-noodles for breakfast. Be irresponsible.

I adore you.

Mark xxxx’

“Goodnight, Mark.”  
Goodnight, Damien.

He kept thinking of fires of smoke rising of the crazed jangle of bells and the surprised faces of a crowd as if something had been snatched from them

“I’ll sit with him if you want, Damien. Go watch TV or catch up on some sleep.”  
“I said I wouldn’t leave him.”

It was like turning off the lights one by one.

“Go on, Damien. None of us will be any good to him if we’re exhausted.”  
“No, I’m not leaving.”  
when he was four he almost fell down the shaft of a tin mine and when he was five the car rolled over on the freeway and when he was seven he went on holiday and the gas ring blew out and nobody noticed

he’d been dying all his life

“He’s more peaceful now.”  
“Hmm.”

He heard only fractions of things. Words fell down crevices, got lost for hours, then flew back up and landed on his chest.

“I’m grateful to you.”  
“Why?”  
“Because you haven’t backed off.”  
“I love him.”


	31. the end

“Hey,” Damien said. “You’re awake.” He leant over and moistened Mark’s mouth with a sponge. “Your hands are cold. I’ll hold them and warm them up, shall I?” He was sinking, sinking into the bed.

Fifteen, to get out of bed and go into the living room and it was all a joke.

Two hundred and nine, to marry Damien.

Three-thirty, to go to parents’ evening and their child’s a genius.

Fifty-one, two, three. To open his eyes. Bastard, open them.

He couldn’t. He was falling.

Forty-four, to not be falling. He didn’t want to fall. He was afraid.  
Forty-five, to not be falling.  
He had to think of something. He wouldn’t die if he was thinking of Damien’s hot breath between his legs.

But he couldn’t hold onto anything.

Like a tree losing its leaves.  
He forgot he was even thinking.

“Do you think he can hear us?”  
“Definitely.”  
“Because I’ve been telling him stuff.”  
“What kind of stuff?”  
“Hah,” a pause. “I can’t tell you.”

the big bang was the origin of the solar system and only then was the earth formed and only then could life appear and after all the rain and fire had gone fish came then insects amphibians dinosaurs mammals birds primates hominids and finally humans

“Are you sure he should be making that noise?”  
“I think it’s okay.”  
“It’s different..”  
“That’s worse-”  
“Shit!”  
“Is he dying?”  
“Get Abe, Illinois, run!”

a little bird moved a mountain of sand one grain at a time it picked up one grain every million years and when the mountain had been moved the bird put it all back again and that was how long eternity was and that was a very long time to be dead for

Maybe he would come back as somebody else.  
He’d be the wild-haired guy Damien met in his first week in Paris.  
“Hi, are you the personal trainer?”  
“I’m here, Mark. I’m right here holding your hand. Damien’s here too, he’s sitting on the other side of the bed. And Illinois. We all love you, Mark. We’re all right here with you.”

Mark turned inwards, their voices the sound of water murmuring.

Moments gathered.

Aeroplanes crashed into buildings. Bodies sailed through the air. Tube trains and buses exploded. Radiation seeped from the pavements. The sun turned to the tiniest black spot. The human race died out and cockroaches ruled the world

Anything could happen next.

“It’s alright, Mark, you can go. We love you. You can go now.”  
“Why are you saying that?”  
“He might need permission to die, Illinois.”  
“Well, he doesn’t have my permission.”

He wanted to say yes.  
Say yes to everything for one more day.

“Maybe you should actually say goodbye, Illinois.”  
“No.”  
“It might be important-”  
“It might make him die.”  
“He wants to know you love him.”

One more moment. One more. He could manage one more.   
A sweet wrapper whipped up the path in the wind.

“Go on, Illinois.”  
“I feel stupid.”  
“We’re not listening. Get close and whisper.”

His name encircled a roundabout.  
Cuttlefish washed up on a beach.  
A dead bird in the park.  
Millions of maggots stunned by sunlight.

“Bye, Mark. Haunt me if you like. I don’t mind.”

Six snowmen made of cotton wool.  
Six serviettes folded into origami lilies.  
A stone painted like an ancient tapestry.

There was sun in his teacup.  
Illinois stared out of the window as Mark drove out of town. The sky got darker and darker.

Let them go.

Damien looked out across the town below. “Anything could be happening down there, but up here you just wouldn’t know it.”

Damien stroked his head, his face, he kissed his nose. He was blessed.

Let them all go.

The sound of a bird flying low across the garden. Then nothing. Nothing. A cloud passed. Nothing again. Light fell through the window, fell onto him, into him.

Moments.

All gathered towards this one.


End file.
